Reparations
by Renee Spelt Strange
Summary: In the post-war world, Draco Malfoy has lost his charmed life and Harry Potter has discovered that victory is more complicated than he could have ever imagined. HP/DM slash. EWE.
1. Prologue

**Reparations**

* * *

><p><strong>THE SAVIOUR RETURNS AFTER TWELVE MONTHS IN EXILE<strong>

**AUGUST 31st, 1999**

**by Rita Skeeter**

Harry Potter, 19, famous for defeating the dark wizard known as Lord Voldemort last year in May, has recently re-entered the country, according to several reliable witnesses.

After having disappeared to a heretofore unknown location for approximately one year, it is rumoured that Mr. Potter has not only returned to Great Britain but has been staying at the popular wizarding establishment, The Leaky Cauldron.

Mrs. Maybelle Whitman, who was shopping for new robes in Diagon Alley, yesterday wrote to reporters at the Daily Prophet informing us that she had caught a glimpse of Mr. Potter being served lunch while occupying a secluded booth at the inn.

Two days before that, Zacharias Smith, a fellow student of Mr. Potter's and a former member of the teenage vigilante organisation known as _Dumbledore's Army_, had called in to our offices after having seen someone who "looked just like Potter" in Florean Fortescue's ice-cream parlour.

Moreover, the Daily Prophet received complaints last Sunday that the Portkey Office had been completely shut down and closed to the general public for two hours for an unknown reason. Could Mr. Potter's alleged homecoming and this incident be connected? It certainly seems likely, despite the fact that the Department of Magical Transportation refused to respond to several owls from Daily Prophet staff inquiring about the matter.

When our reporters were sent to the Leaky Cauldron to conduct a full investigation on behalf of our readers, the inn's landlord denied the claims, stating that he wasn't letting a room to the teenage war-hero. That said, however, the innkeeper would not allow our reporters to perform an inspection of the premises and threatened to ask the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for a cease and desist order if we did not stop interviewing his patrons.

Mr. Kingsley Shacklebolt, newly appointed Minister for Magic, ex-member of the Order of the Phoenix, and close personal acquaintance of the Boy Who Lived also refused to provide an official statement confirming the rumour, insisting that though he is unaware of Mr. Potter's whereabouts, he believes that the media should discontinue speculation.

Although the Daily Prophet supports our new Minister, and has publicly endorsed many of the legislative and political changes that were proposed by the former Auror during his campaign, our loyalty lies first and foremost in our readers, whom we believe deserve to know whether our national hero has indeed returned to us.

Although as yet unsubstantiated, it is a logical allegation, as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry will be re-opening tomorrow, and students whose seventh year studies were disrupted by the Second Wizarding War have been invited to return for an "eighth year" in order to sit for their NEWT exams.

Indeed, by late tomorrow afternoon, when Hogwarts Board-elected Headmistress, Minerva McGonagall, officially begins the new term with the customary Welcoming Feast, we shall all find out with absolute certainty whether Mr. Harry Potter has in fact come home to Great Britain.

* * *

><p>Harry curses when the owl delivers the Prophet.<p>

He stares at the grey broadsheet newspaper, the headline blaring up at him above a moving picture of his own face, smiling wearily as he stands beside an exhausted looking Hermione and a solemn Ron. They are in front of the castle, and in the immediate aftermath of the Battle, their clothes are torn in some places and streaked with dirt and blood in others.

In the background, people are moving around slowly, cataloguing the dead and helping the injured to St. Mungo's.

Soft hooting sounds distract him from the photograph and he looks up to see Errol on the ledge outside his window, swaying slightly under the weight of the three thick envelopes which have been attached to his leg.

He knows before he lifts the window open, the glass screeching unpleasantly against the wooden panes, that they will be from Ron, Hermione and Ginny.

His eyes clench shut.

His knuckles turn white.

He throws the newspaper into the log fire Tom started that morning.


	2. Back to Hogwarts

He doesn't sleep all night, debating whether or not to take the Hogwarts Express.

It doesn't matter in the end: all too soon, it is eleven AM, and he hasn't even left the bed.

It's probably a good thing he missed the train, he muses as he brushes his teeth at four in the afternoon. For twelve months now, he hasn't been able to so much as _think_ about King's Cross station without wanting to violently throw up the contents of his stomach.

The gold-embossed spellbooks sitting on his nightstand are packed first.

He'd owl-ordered them from Flourish and Blotts two days ago. The shop is just across the street, but he can't stand the thought of stepping in there, won't willingly subject himself to a teeming mass of people pressing in on him, asking him where he's been all this time.

He doesn't look at any of the other items too closely as he throws them into the magically enlarged trunk.

Fabian Prewett's gold watch.

The photo-album Hagrid had given him in first year.

The moleskin pouch Hagrid had given him for his seventeenth birthday.

An envelope containing photographs of Ron and Hermione.

His Firebolt.

A shard of Sirius' broken two-way mirror.

His mother's letter to Sirius.

A small vial containing Snape's last memories.

His Invisibility Cloak.

The Marauder's Map.

His wand.

The letters from his two best friends and Ginny lay unopened on the mantel.

* * *

><p>At six o'clock, he pays Tom seven days worth of rent plus a generous tip, thanks the stooped old innkeeper for his kindness and discretion, then Apparates to Hogsmeade with his luggage.<p>

He ducks his head as he makes his way through the village, but Madam Rosmerta is sweeping leaves off the porch outside The Three Broomsticks and spots him. "Harry!"

He cringes when she pulls him into a bone-crushing hug, tears trickling onto the collar of his shirt, but is thankful that she remains silent. She lets him go, holds up a finger and then disappears into the pub. He waits, but immediately wishes he hadn't when she returns and wordlessly presses a large box filled with butterbeer, red currant rum, mulled mead and an assortment of other drinks and foodstuffs into his arms.

He hesitates, but knows that she won't take no for an answer.

He thanks her softly, pecks her on the cheek and then heads for the Shrieking Shack.

There are no doors, but a small sloping window on the south wall, boarded up with planks of decaying timber, is easily unlocked with a whispered _Alohomora_.

His footsteps are too loud against the floorboards and the shadowy hallways are too dark, but he can't resist the urge to look around.

Downstairs, he finds matted brown bloodstains on the floor and doesn't know whether they belong to Snape or Lupin. He bends to touch them, but when they peel away in flakes, he retches heavily, leaning against the drywall for support.

Upstairs, the wallpaper is yellowing, the armchairs have had the stuffing ripped out of them and the sheets on the cot are in shreds.

Plates line the floor, pieces of moulding, foul-smelling bread sitting atop some of them. He Vanishes the whole lot, knowing that they must have been used by the Death Eaters.

When he makes his way back down to the small tunnel, his breaths are being drawn in sharp, painful gasps and he knows that it isn't because of the thick layer of dust that cakes the rubbling building. His legs feel like deadweights, and his hands are shaking so badly that he has to jam his wand into his pocket.

Strangely, the long, uncomfortable crawl on his stomach to the base of the Whomping Willow calms him.

When he emerges from a gap in the roots, touches a long switch to the knot on the lowest branch of the tree and hauls himself to a standing position, his t-shirt is in ruins and his abdomen is bleeding from several long gashes created by what he guesses were rocks and brambles.

It hurts, but he doesn't heal them.

He doesn't even mend his shirt.

Against his better judgment, however, he does make his way slowly up to the castle that used to be his home.


	3. New Beginnings

Although a whispered Tempus Charm reveals that it is already ten thirty, the start of term banquet is still going.

When he opens the heavy oak doors to the Entrance Hall, he can hear the sounds of laughter, talking and the clinking of knives and forks from the Great Hall.

He doesn't even consider walking in.

Instead, he makes his way to the marble staircase and heads for Gryffindor Tower.

"Where are you going, boy?"

"Everybody else is still at dinner!"

"You'll miss the Sorting and start of term notices, you know."

He barely hears the indignant cries of the portraits.

Instead, he surveys staircases, corridors and classrooms as he passes by them.

He expects to see piles of rubble and concrete debris. He had thought there would be great heaps of building materials near unfinished reconstruction sites. He had prepared himself to find elaborate shrines erected to honour the students that had died during the Battle.

In reality, everything looks exactly the same as it did when he was in sixth year.

Harry doesn't know if that's better or worse.

He valiantly tries to ignore the dull throbbing in his temples, the ugly bitter feeling clawing its way through his chest, and breaks into a run so that the castle walls are blurred in his peripheral vision. In no time at all, he is standing in front of the Fat Lady, panting and clutching at a stitch in his stomach.

"Password?" Her eyebrows are raised expectantly.

"Er…"

"No password, no entry," she says firmly, straightening her voluminous petticoat.

"Oh come on! You know me! Please just let me in."

She ignores him, and takes to examining her makeup in a large hand mirror.

Harry curses loudly, kicks at the wall beside her portrait and then hops about madly, clutching his aching foot.

She doesn't even blink.

Huffing in frustration, he sinks down to the hard floor, leans his head back against the brick wall he'd just been kicking, and closes his eyes.

* * *

><p>"HARRY!"<p>

The loud shout jerks him sharply back to consciousness, but he doesn't even have time to open his eyes before he is being crushed under the weight of several bodies and engulfed by the chatter of excited, babbling voices.

"Oh my goodness, it's Harry Potter! Did you see him, Michelle?"

"Seamus! Come quickly! Harry's back!"

"Oh, Harry! Harry! We've missed you so much! Where _have _you been? Why didn't you reply to our letters? And what _happened_ to your clothes?"

He cringes at Hermione's shrill questions.

When he moves to stand quickly, he sees that she, Ron, Ginny and Neville, all of whom had been on top of him a second previously, have backed off slightly and are watching him warily. Beside them, Dean and Seamus are oblivious to the tension, grinning widely at him.

Beyond the six Gryffindors is an assembled group of about twenty first years, many of whom are unashamedly gawking at Harry with wide-eyed expressions of reverence and fear.

A hush falls over the crowd as they wait for him to respond.

"What's the password?" His voice is quiet, and his friends look at each other in dismay.

Ron steps forward, a hand stretched out as though approaching a startled animal. "Mate, come on. It's been a year. Surely you aren't just going to -"

"Does anybody here know the password?" He turns away from Ron, his chest aching with the effort it takes, but he hears his best friend's groan of frustration and he can see that Hermione is on the verge of tears, her left hand pressed to her mouth, and it's tearing at his resolve…

But then Ginny steps forwards, her jaw set and her eyes stormy with fury. "Just stop it, Harry. You're being completely irrational. We haven't seen you in God knows how long and this is how you treat us? If you want to stay mad at me, that's fine. Neville and I are leaving tonight. But Ron and Hermione haven't done anything wrong. They've been worried_ sick_ about you! I can't believe you're being so childish."

Harry is opening his mouth to retort, his fists clenching at his sides, but Neville steps forward before he can begin and places a hand on Ginny's shoulder.

"Gin, come on. Don't do this in front of everyone." His words are gentle, and all of Ginny's rage seems to melt under his beseeching expression.

"Fine," she sighs, then turns to the Fat Lady. "Nova Initia."

The portrait hole swings open and Harry lifts his shrunken trunk, stalks into the circular common room without a word and makes his way to the staircase that will take him up to his old dormitory.

He falls into the mattress with his clothes and shoes still on. He's hungry, but can't find the energy or the will to unlock his trunk and take out some of the food Madam Rosmerta gave him earlier. He rubs his eyes in a gesture of exhaustion, but sleep doesn't come.

Thirty minutes later, when Ron, Dean and Seamus silently creep in, obviously trying to avoid his ire, he stares morosely at the scarlet wall hangings drawn tight around his bed. He doesn't know whether to be glad that they aren't approaching him, or angry that they've given up without really trying.

Turning over, he thinks about the reason for Neville's absence and suddenly there's no question about what he's feeling for the other occupants of his dorm.

He's livid.

It's been twelve months, during which time he's been out of the country and has been missing Ron and Hermione so badly that he's felt like half a person…but it hasn't changed things at all.

He's still every bit as upset, and as raw, and as _hurt _as he was when he left so long ago.

* * *

><p>He falls into an uncomfortable half-sleep but he's instantly alert, wand in hand, climbing out of his twisted sheets, when he hears the door click quietly open.<p>

He looks at his bedside alarm clock, the numbers glowing eerily red in the dark: it's four o'clock in the morning.

His bed hangings are pulled away abruptly but he is prepared and whispers "Petrificus Totalus" so quickly that he doesn't even have time to realize that it's Hermione he's just hexed before her body snaps into ramrod-straight rigidity.

He exhales roughly. "Shit, I'm sorry. Finite." He throws his wand onto the bed as her body relaxes, spine curving back in on itself. "What do you want, Hermione?"

She is clutching at her chest and her eyes are wide with surprise but she lifts her chin slightly. "I thought we could talk."

Her tone leaves no room for discussion but he catches the tremor of her hands under the sleeves of her cotton pyjamas and the tips of her ears have turned pink. He almost smiles. Maybe she's picked up the tell from Ron while he's been gone.

In any case, he knows that for all her bravado, she's scared he'll say no or lash out at her. He's too tired to do either, so he simply walks down to the common room, hearing her soft footsteps following him.

He sits on the hearth with his back to the fire, crossing his legs, closing his eyes, and letting the flames warm him.

It's only the first day of Autumn, but he hasn't had time to acclimate himself to British weather again.

She kneels in front of him and he tenses, but when she speaks, it's not the interrogation he had been expecting. Instead, she is muttering softly under her breath in Latin, and his eyes fly open to find her wand pointed at his torso.

He feels the skin there drawing together, knitting itself back up.

He starts. He'd completely forgotten about the cuts.

He doesn't tell her that he could've done it himself - if he were so inclined - and he doesn't let on that he understands her murmured words. He remembers from sixth year how jealous and petty she can be when someone can do anything better than she can.

He grimaces immediately.

Just thinking something like that makes him feel mean and uncharitable and he hates himself for how bitter he's become, especially when she smiles widely a few minutes later at his unbroken skin and his patched-up shirt.

"Thanks."

It's just a word, delivered tonelessly and without a smile, but she's positively beaming now.

"You're welcome."

"I thought you wanted to talk."

Her smile disappears. "Actually, I wanted you to talk. Where have you been?"

He shrugs. "Around."

"Harry, please. We've been so worried. I just want to know where you went."

He looks at the darkened night sky outside the window, framed by tasseled gold drapes. "Why are there so many first years?"

She looks taken aback by the question. "What?"

"The first years. There are so many. Why?"

She's obviously confused by the inanity of his query, but shrugs. "Well you know the school was shut down for a year during the reconstruction. During that time, the kids that had just turned eleven obviously couldn't attend. Now they're all twelve years old but they still need to learn first year work, so McGonagall decided to place them with the eleven year olds. It's just easier that way."

He nods in understanding, curiosity satisfied, then sighs. "I was with Luna for those first three months."

"Luna?" her eyebrows have drawn together in confusion. "You didn't…I mean, the two of you weren't…"

She's stammering uncharacteristically, but it's only when she begins turning a faint shade of red that he understands.

"Merlin no! No! Nothing like that!" He can feel his own cheeks warming up and is glad for the tan he acquired while he was gone. "I was helping her look for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks."

Hermione raises her eyebrows, and he shifts under the skeptical expression.

"Don't look at me like that. I know they don't exist, but she was going to go no matter what I said and I needed to leave, Hermione. I couldn't stand it here anymore, and she asked me if I wanted to come…" he shrugs. "She was good company, left me to myself mostly. I didn't have to constantly talk about my feelings or whatever." He pauses, raising his eyebrows pointedly.

She ignores the implication and presses on eagerly, clearly anxious to keep him talking. "Well where exactly did the two of you go?"

"Lots of places. First Belgium, then Germany, then Austria for a few weeks." He laughs suddenly, shaking his head fondly. "She wouldn't let us use magic. Said it might scare them away. We had to travel on Muggle trains to get around during the day, and camp out in forests at night without using our wands. That was bloody awful. She finally gave up in Switzerland. Decided to go home and help her father with the Quibbler."

"That sneak! We must've spoken to her a hundred times since she got back. She never said a word, even while we were going mad looking for you."

Hermione's voice is more awed than angry, but Harry still bristles. "Don't be mad at her. I asked her not to say anything. I knew you lot would try and find me if she did."

"Would that really have been so bad? Didn't you miss us at all?" She's looking at him hesitantly, as though honestly unsure of his answer, and he feels a rush of regret.

"Of course I did, all right? But it was never about the two of you."

At that, she glares at him. "That's right, it wasn't. You shouldn't have shut us out. You should've let us be there for you. Instead, you ran away."

"I didn't run away!" he says, stung. "I just…took a break."

He hates the unimpressed look she sends his way. He stands, intending to march back into his dorm, their stupid conversation be damned, but she reaches out quickly, her hand on his arm.

"No, wait! I'm sorry, Harry. I didn't mean to attack you. Please, just sit back down."

After a moment, he does and she looks extremely relieved. "What about the other nine months? What were you doing then?"

"Well, after Luna left, I decided to visit Hagrid in France. You know he's decided to stay with Madame Maxime at Beauxbatons?"

When she nods, he continues. "She put a Glamour on my scar, let me take lessons at the school and told the students I was on a 'foreign exchange program' from Hogwarts. I was still the only boy, so most of the girls stayed away from me, but at least none of them asked me about Voldemort. Gabrielle Delacour knew who I was though. She and Hagrid were really the only people I spoke to."

"Wow, that's incredible, Harry. You must've learnt so much. You've practically completed seventh year already."

He nods slightly in affirmation. "I'm qualified to work in France if I want to. When McGonagall's letter arrived, I was going to ignore it, but Hagrid saw it and made me accept. Said he'd been lying for me long enough. Said you and Ron were driving him spare with your owls."

She smiles wearily. "I think we sent them to everybody who's ever known you. Every week, without fail. Mrs Weasley made us send them to your aunt and uncle too - but they never replied. Although…I think we did get a letter once from your cousin. He said that if we ever found you, he wanted you to know that he was sorry. I have it up in my dorm if you want to read it."

He does actually; it's been a long time since he's been angry at Dudley. But he's shivering under his thin cotton shirt and tattered jeans - behind him, the fire has completely died out and outside the window, he can see a faintish pink on grey sky.

Dawn is breaking, lessons begin in three hours and he's feeling more exhausted by the second.

"Later. I think I'll go and take a shower now."

"Oh, okay then. I'll do the same." She stands, wringing her hands together nervously. "Um, you won't go back to ignoring me, will you?"

He lifts himself heavily to his feet, then pulls her into a hug. "Course not." The words are murmured into her sleep-mussed hair, still as bushy as ever, but he feels the upward quirk of her lips through the material of his t-shirt and she wraps her arms tightly around him.

The minutes stretch on.

"We've missed you."

He heard her say it before but this time, the words, whispered and raw, make his throat constrict painfully and he swallows with some difficulty.

"Missed you too."

He has extricated himself from the too-tight embrace and is already on the third step of the staircase when she asks abruptly. "I meant to ask earlier. What happened to your glasses?"

His fingers fly up to his eyes almost reflexively. "Oh, right. I forgot I didn't have them on. The matron at Beauxbatons is really good with Healing Charms. She fixed my eyes for me."

"You look good." The words are simple, but he turns pink anyway. She grins. "But you still blush like a girl."

He chuckles too, surprised. Maybe she's picked up a sense of humor from Ron as well.

He's still grinning when she says, "Listen, before you go, I was just wondering…"

"Spit it out, Hermione." His voice is exasperated, but still good-natured.

"Erm, did you by any chance happen to get the Prophet delivered while you were away?"

"No, I didn't want to keep reading about how I'd done a runner during Britain's time of need."

His voice is lightly sardonic, but she tenses up at his response, waving her hands at him. "Oh don't be ridiculous. Not even Rita Skeeter dared to write anything like that. Everyone was just worried mostly." She's worrying her lower lip between her teeth now. "Um, at Beauxbatons, did Gabrielle ever mention Fleur?"

Mystified, he shakes his head. "No, Madame Maxime doesn't let the students go home for Christmas or Easter, and she doesn't let them have post delivered. Says it makes them homesick."

She's positively harried now, and for the life of him, he can't work out what's got her so worked up.

She takes a deep breath. "I see. Well then you should probably know some things about Dra - Malfoy. Things that happened while you were gone."

He raises an eyebrow. "Malfoy?"

She nods, and though he doesn't understand why this seems to be so important to her, it clearly is.

"Tell me about it over breakfast?"

She nods again, looking pleased, then practically skips over to her own staircase. "See you then."


	4. Four Important Moments

Manacles bite into his wrists, drawing sticky blood each time he moves.

There is a choking inability to breathe - to draw even a single mouthful of air - whenever a Dementor approaches the bars around his cell.

The pungent stench of decaying flesh, emanating from corpses left to rot in nearby cells, makes him retch frequently into the yellowing latrine in the corner.

Each day, a round plate with a chunk of bread, quarter glass of milk and two morsels of some indistinguishable kind of meat, is pushed through the bars. His stomach heaves violently when he forces it down, but it's either that or starve to death.

There are no blankets, and the cell walls are made of stone but they don't keep out the chill when the tide is particularly high and the surf is breaking in roaring waves against the building, icy water seeping through tiny fissures and flooding his floor a good three feet.

Sometimes, it gets so bad that he has no choice but to climb onto his rickety metal headboard and stand there with his back pressed against the wall for hours at a time, only to clamber down, shivering, and curl up on the soaked mattress.

But it's the nightmares that disturb him the most. Shadowy dreams in which Charity Burbage's screaming face can warp the next second into Crabbe's burning flesh, can become Dumbledore's serene face as he promises shelter and safety, can shift into Granger's high-pitched shrieks, can morph into his Aunt Bellatrix's cackling laughter, can turn into a flat, blurred, repellant face with a taunting voice and a maniacal cackle.

His parents are kept in a different cell, but they see each other every week during visits from Department of Magical Law Enforcement Defence Attorneys in the Conference Room. Some are aloof or indignant, others are quite obviously terrified of his father. Not one of them agrees to defend the infamous Malfoy family.

Father sends hundreds of owls to attorneys on the Continent, men who might not have heard of Voldemort and his Death Eaters, or perhaps men who just don't care. Thankfully, the Ministry hasn't frozen their assets so he gets replies, of course - the sum of money he offers is exorbitant by anyone's standard, and not even the tainted Malfoy name can spoil the value of the gold sitting in their numerous vaults.

In mid-July, Father, emaciated and sallow, almost beyond recognition, decides on a French lawyer whose fee is fifty thousand galleons but whose track record with war criminals on the Continent is exemplary.

But three months have passed before they are called for trial before the Wizengamot, and by that time, Lucius Malfoy has died of pneumonia, found floating face down in a flooded Azkaban holding cell.

By this point, Draco loves and hates his father in equal measure, so even as he cradles his wailing mother in the Conference Room, rocking her back and forth gently, he can agree that it's a fitting death: no less than what Lucius deserved.

* * *

><p>He knows it's over before the Frenchman even begins his piece.<p>

At his father's trial, the summer after fifth year, the Wizengamot must have had fifty members. Now, there are only about thirty. Moreover, there is no Minister for Magic and no one heading the Department of Magical Law Enforcement so Draco doesn't recognise the person conducting the trial, a tall, dark-skinned man with a deep voice.

There are two balconies to their left, crowded with excited-looking reporters, but the members of the Wizengamot are seated high on a raised platform in front of them, staring down at Draco and his mother with barely concealed loathing in their features, and it's so completely obvious what their verdict will be that he wants to scream at them.

What is the point of even calling a trial?

He's already resigned himself to several years, if not life imprisonment, in an Azkaban cell, so the stony, unforgiving faces of the parliament members can shame him, but they won't scare him.

But his mother…

Merlin, his mother is sitting beside him, clutching at his arm as though she expects exoneration.

He rubs the back of her hand, bones now brittle under the prematurely papery skin, and is suddenly certain that the unavoidable disappointment will kill her: she won't survive losing his father and then returning to Azkaban. He closes his eyes as they read the charges, and doesn't open them for the next two hours as witness after witness is called in to testify against them.

For reasons he won't soon care to examine, he finds himself thinking about Potter.

It's the final day of July.

It's Potter's birthday.

He knows this because he has read (and re-read) every book about the boy-hero that the Hogwarts library stocks and owl-ordered archived editions of the Prophet in his fourth year.

He knows about Potter's parents: their work with the Order of Phoenix, their unplottable hiding place at Godric's Hollow, the exact manner of their deaths. He knows that Dumbledore was the one who placed Potter in the care of his Muggle relatives seventeen years ago. He knows all about the many occasions on which Potter bested the Dark Lord - with help, of course, from his Aunt Bella and her deranged soliloquies after Potter Apparated away from the Manor.

But he doesn't know Potter, not really.

Still. He can confidently guess that Potter is currently celebrating, surrounded by Weasleys, probably at some inn in Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley.

Draco remembers listening from his room, heart clenching painfully in his chest, when Bella had gleefully announced to the Death Eaters downstairs that she had destroyed Arthur Weasley's house and killed one of his sons. He remembers collapsing against his door, exhaling in a whoosh of pure relief, when Bella had resentfully muttered that Potter had escaped in both instances.

All too soon, the proceedings are drawing to a close.

Draco opens his eyes to find that the lawyer has already gathered his papers and sealed his briefcase. The bastard doesn't even look apologetic, has one hand in his pocket, is twirling his wand in the other, waiting for the sentencing to be handed down so he can receive his payment.

The black man is calling a vote, Draco watches with bated breath as hands are raised, his mother has locked his arm in a death-grip…

There is a loud crashing noise from the public gallery.

"Mr. Potter, you can't go in there right now!"

"Kingsley, stop!"

Immediately, Draco thinks he must be hallucinating.

Potter can't be panting against the railing of the mezzanine at this very moment, not looking at Draco or his mother but at the black man whose name must be Kingsley. This Kingsley person can't be hastily apologizing to the other members of the Wizengamot, then leaving the trial chamber to talk with Potter. He can't be returning, conversing in low whispers to his colleagues, and then announcing to the gallery that in light of new evidence, the Wizengamot will be clearing Draco and Narcissa Malfoy of all charges and granting them a full pardon from the Ministry of Magic for their war crimes.

It just _can't _be happening.

Except his mother is shaking hands with the awful lawyer, who is assuring her that he had known he would succeed, and there are tears running down her face, and the Wizengamot members are packing away their things, and the reporters have gone crazy.

"Mr. Shacklebolt, what new evidence?"

"What did Mr. Potter say?"

"Would you consider giving an exclusive statement about this trial?"

Draco barely registers any of it through the ringing in his ears. He wildly turns his head this way and that, looking for Potter who must not have returned after calling Kingsley Shacklebolt outside. Fuck, Potter can't have left! Draco has to find Potter, has to thank him, has to apologise, has to…

He runs to the courtroom doors, and has just a second to wonder at the fact that he can do this freely now, before be breaks into a sprint down the dungeon-like corridors outside.

The doors to the elevator on Level Nine slide shut just as Draco rounds the corner. He curses, then bangs at the buttons in frustration until another lift arrives. The precious minutes it takes for him to reach the Atrium are torture and he taps his foot, runs his hand through his hair and clicks his tongue so often that the other witch in the compartment glares at him.

"Did you just see Harry Potter walk by?"

"What's it to you if I did?" The grumpy-looking security wizard in the Atrium wants to know.

"Please! It's really important. I have to speak to him."

The wizard seems to take in Draco's flushed face and ragged breathing, then sighs, jerks his thumb to the end of the floor. "He went towards the Visitor's Entrance."

"Thank you!"

When Draco emerges from a shabby telephone booth into an even shabbier London alleyway to find that night has already fallen, sweating and panting and probably looking worse than he has in his entire life, he could swear his heart stops beating.

Potter is leaning against a faded grey brick wall, holding Draco's old wand in his hand.

"I'm sorry. I would've come sooner but I didn't know your trial was today." The Gryffindor shakes his head. "I didn't even know they had you in remand. If your mother's owl hadn't arrived this morning, I would've kept thinking that you were at the Manor and then it might've been too late to change the Wizengamot's mind."

For all of Draco's desperate need to find Potter, he finds that he can't actually say a word in response to the softly spoken words.

Potter looks _terrible_.

He doesn't look the way a person should look after defeating the greatest Dark wizard of their time at the age of seventeen. He doesn't look happy, or self-satisfied or even_ healthy_. Even in the darkness, Draco can see that there are dark circles under his eyes, his clothes are much too large for his frame and his hair is more of a mess than Draco remembers.

Potter clears his throat. "Well, anyway, I just thought you might need this."

He holds out the wand, and still mute, Draco reaches to take it.

Potter steps back. "Good luck, Malfoy."

Then he is walking away, and Draco _still _hasn't said a word. In fact, it is only when Potter has reached the end of the grimy alleyway, and disappeared from sight that Draco can even open his mouth.

By then, though, it is too late.

Draco stares down at his wand, shaking his head and swallowing hard against the dry lump in his throat.

An already wealthy French solicitor will agree to defend a man who'd killed and tortured hundreds of people for fifty thousand galleons.

Harry Potter, who had lost _everything_ to the war, will attend a trial on his own fucking birthday in order to defend the boy who'd tried for seven years to ruin his life…for absolutely nothing at all.

* * *

><p>Pansy is reclining on the divan in the drawing room, watching him with no small amount of amusement.<p>

"Your father tried to kill him about a hundred times, you know."

He sighs, flipping through the heavy leather-bound book in front of him, trying to find out how to cast a Glamour strong enough to mask his Mark.

"I know."

"You broke his nose on the train in sixth year, then tried to Crucio him."

"I know."

"Your mother helped lure Sirius Black into the Ministry, then your Aunt killed him. _Then_ I heard she killed one of the Weasley twins and that Metamorphmagus cousin of yours last year."

"I know." His words are clipped now.

"He's her kid's godfather, you know."

"Merlin, Pans. I _know_. Will you just drop it?"

She stands, hands coming to rest on her hips, eyes flashing with irritation. "How can I, Draco? You want to go back to Hogwarts, for Merlin's sake! You can tell me all you like that it's to _do your share_, whatever the fuck that means, but you forget that I _know_ you."

She's advancing on him, voice softening slightly. "You've been crushing on Potter for years. But Draco…if you think that just because he saved you from Crabbe's fire and then rescued you again last week, that he's going to suddenly declare that he's bent for you, then Azkaban really has turned you into nutter."

Her hands come to rest on his shoulders and he tips his head back, resting it against her stomach.

"Pans, I'm not crushing on him, alright? I'm not doing this for him at all. I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do. I fucked up, and this is the only way I can think to make it better. I know they won't want me there, but I don't care. The Daily Prophet said that McGonagall is asking for anybody to come and help with the reconstructions, and I really want to, okay? Now, please, help me find a spell that will hide this ugly thing?"

It's not the whole truth. Of course he doesn't imagine that Potter will ever even consider him a friend, let alone anything more - that part is true enough. Still, he has always found Potter physically attractive and the chance to see him every day during the reconstructions…Draco would die before admitting it, but he's missed having that luxury. More than that, he needs Potter to see that he's changed - not to impress him, but to assure him that it was worth saving Draco's life twice.

And there's also a third reason. He has been researching life-debts almost obsessively over the past week because he doesn't know if this horrible, gut-clenching feeling that he _owes_ Potter, needs to give Potter everything he can, has been magically induced or…something else.

Pansy is silent for a moment and he's afraid that she'll continue with the lecture but she leans over and begins rifling through the pages herself.

He smirks when he notices that she's positioned herself in a way that best shows off her impressive cleavage.

"You know I won't appreciate that."

"I know," her voice is mild, "but you should know what you're giving up for Potter."

He laughs, wrapping an arm around her waist.

"I'm going to miss you so much, Pans. I've only been out of Azkaban a week. Do you really have to leave tomorrow?"

"I know, baby. I'm sorry. I wish I could stay too, but you know that I can barely take a step into Diagon Alley or anywhere else in England after the damn Prophet printed what I said before the Battle." She sighs heavily. "Rome will be horrible without you. Father's already found a tutor, so there'll be no one for me to talk to either. Promise me you'll write."

"I promise, Pans." He squeezes her gently.

A dull tapping at the French windows distracts them. It's a Daily Prophet owl. Draco returns to his Charms text as Pansy walks over and hands the large bird a Knut, detaches the newspaper and unrolls it swiftly.

"Oh!" She has a hand clapped to her mouth and Draco is by her side in an instant.

"What is it? What's happened?"

She points at the front page.

**HARRY POTTER HAS LEFT THE COUNTRY**

**AUGUST 10****th****, 1998**

**by Rita Skeeter**

The Saviour shocked Daily Prophet reporters, key members of the Order of the Phoenix and Ministry officials last night when he failed to attend an honorary dinner that would have seen him receive an Order of Merlin (First Class) for his triumph against He Who Must Not Be Named three months ago.

Aurors from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement were called immediately and sent to search Number 12 Grimmauld Place in London while Mr. Potter's friends waited, distressed and anxious, in the Ministry Ballroom. However, this morning, fellow war-heroes Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger urged the public not to worry and say that the Boy Who Lived is simply taking a much-needed break from the wizarding world for an unspecified amount of time.

_Continue to page 4 for the full statement given by Mr. Weasley and Ms. Granger.  
>Continue to page 6 for more information about 12 Grimmauld Place and Mr. Potter's recent campaign to award Sirius Black (wrongfully accused of murder seventeen years ago) an Order of Merlin (First Class).<em>

Pansy has thrown her arms around him, but a heavy weight has already settled in Draco's stomach.

How the fuck is he going to repay Potter now?

* * *

><p>Draco is the first person into the Great Hall on the first official day of term.<p>

Over the past year, he's worked on this part of the castle more than any other and he's proud of it. It looks exactly the same as it did during sixth year, ceiling once again enchanted, magically lit candles hovering majestically above four empty House tables.

The food appears at promptly seven o'clock along with a stack of new timetables at the foot of the table. He collects his and helps himself to breakfast.

**Date issued: 1****st**** September, 1999**

Monday:  
>Potions (9:00-10:05)<br>History of Magic (10:15-11:20)  
>Defence Against the Dark Arts (11:30-12:35)<br>Care of Magical Creatures (12:45-1:50)  
>Care of Magical Creatures (2:00-3:05)<p>

Tuesday:  
>Herbology (9:00-10:05)<br>Herbology (10:15-11:20)  
>Defence Against the Dark Arts (11:30-12:35)<br>Arithmancy (12:45-1:50)  
>Charms (2:00-3:05)<p>

Wednesday:  
>Astronomy (9:00-10:05)<br>Studies in Ancient Runes (10:15-11:20)  
>Transfiguration (11:30-12:35)<br>History of Magic (12:45-1:50)  
>Muggle Studies (2:00-3:05)<p>

Thursday  
>Charms (9:00-10:05)<br>Arithmancy (10:15-11:20)  
>Muggle Studies (11:30-12:35)<br>Free Period (12:45-1:50)  
>Free Period (2:00-3:05)<p>

Friday:  
>Potions (9:00-10:05)<br>Free Period (10:15-11:20)  
>Studies in Ancient Runes (11:30-12:35)<br>Astronomy (12:45-1:50)  
>Transfiguration (2:00-3:05)<p>

Draco groans softly as he runs his eyes down the page. With Muggle Studies now acting as a compulsory core subject at Hogwarts, he is sitting for eleven NEWTs, and on top of that, all of his three free periods are scheduled for the end of the week.

More students are trailing into the Hall, chatting animatedly to their friends and complaining about their workloads, but there are still only a few other people at the Slytherin table. At the Feast last night, they had been at half-capacity while the other Houses had been almost completely full. Moreover, Draco, Blaise, Theo Nott and Millie Bulstrode are the only returning eighth year Slytherins, and as he hasn't spoken to them for over a year, there really isn't anyone to keep him company down in the dungeons.

He is staring moodily down into his bowl of cereal when a sudden hush falls over the room. He looks up, catches a glimpse of a bushy-haired brunette girl with a bulging backpack entering the Hall, and smiles happily, about to raise his hand in greeting.

But the next second, he feels his joints lock up and his breath catches in his throat, because Granger is moving further into the Hall, and now Draco can see that following her, staring down at his shoelaces and not wearing his robes, is Potter.

Not for the first time, Draco thinks that Ginny Weasley must have been dropped on her head as a baby.

Potter has grown several inches - he might even be taller than Draco now. His hair, which had always been unruly at best, is still messy, but it has been cut and styled in a way that makes the tousled look seem deliberate and…strangely endearing. He's not wearing those awful round glasses, the ones that had always given him an owlish look, so even from across the Ravenclaw table, Draco can tell that the unusual green of his irises is startlingly pronounced against his thick black lashes.

When Potter sits downs to breakfast in his Muggle clothing, it's obvious that the scrawny look to which he'd always been so prone after returning from previous summer holidays is completely gone. He's still incredibly lean - still has his Seeker build - but his forearms are wiry with muscle, his shoulders are broader under the plain white t-shirt he is wearing and Draco would bet his Nimbus 2001 that if Potter were to reach up for some reason or other, his shirt would ride up and expose a rock-hard abdomen.

And somehow, just as Draco finishes thinking about it, it happens. The owl post arrives, Potter casually raises an arm to catch a letter that has fallen from the talons of a large brown barn owl, and the bottom of his Muggle shirt lifts up a little, and…

Draco drops his spoon, which had been halfway to his mouth and filled with milk. It falls onto his lap, staining the material of his black robes with an unseemly white stain. He curses, siphons the liquid away with his wand, and then looks back up only to find that Potter has opened his letter, and is reading it with an excited expression on his handsome face.

Draco's heart had fairly stopped beating when that tanned sliver of Potter's ridiculously well-defined stomach had been revealed, but seeing Potter's soft smile is causing his body to react in even _more_ heinous ways. Because really, there is just no excuse for desperately wanting to know the reason for Potter's uncharacteristically open expression so that he can file the information away for later use.

He bites down on his lip. Hard.

If Pansy could just hear his thoughts now, she would laugh herself stupid.

Curse the bint to hell and back, she had been completely right.

He'd known that all along, of course.

He'd simply hoped that protesting enough would make his irrational feelings for Potter go away.

Potter, who had a second ago been immersed in a low conversation with Granger but has now noticed Draco for the first time in over twelve months and is proceeding to stare with some indescribable look in his eyes: a mixture of complete surprise and wary disbelief. Weasley is now at the table, next to Granger, and has drawn her into a conversation, but Potter doesn't even seem to notice. His eyes are dark and boring into Draco, who fights the urge to duck his head and pretend to busy himself with his toast.

His heart is thumping hard against his ribcage, he feels the back of his neck bead with perspiration and his hand his shaking so hard, he drops his spoon again, noisily into his cereal bowl this time.

Finally - _finally_, Potter looks away, still clutching his letter, and what is probably his timetable, tightly in one hand, the other reaching for his backpack. He pushes away from the Gryffindor table before leaving the Great Hall in long strides, not speaking to anyone before he does so, but attracting the attention of almost everybody in the room regardless.

Draco exhales shakily.

Heartbeat still erratic, he thinks that if these staring matches are going to become a regular occurrence during his eighth year at Hogwarts…

Well.

He might just prefer Potter with his ugly glasses after all.

* * *

><p><strong><em>Should<em> Harry's glasses make a reappearance? What do you guys think? :)**


	5. Panic Attacks and Self Induced Insomnia

Hermione is sending him anxious looks as they make their way down to the Great Hall and he doesn't know whether it's because she's worried about the reaction everyone will have to seeing him or whether she's still in a snit about Malfoy.

"What?" he asks pointedly, feeling only slightly guilty when she turns pink.

"Nothing. It's just that…well, I know I said that the Prophet didn't dare print anything negative about you for leaving…"

Already, he already doesn't like the sound of where this is going. "Yeah, so?"

"And that was true, really. Ron and I had to keep threatening Rita again and again with going to the Ministry about being an unregistered Animagus to keep her quiet. But, Harry, there are still lots of people out there who are pretty upset. Just…if someone says something today, please don't rise. It won't be worth it."

He feels his spine snap straight almost involuntarily. "Yeah and I just bet that Malfoy will be the one leading the inquisition."

Strangely, she looks completely startled by the idea. "Draco? No, he wouldn't."

"_Draco?_"

"Oh look, are those our timetables do you think?" She rushes forward hastily, but not before Harry notices the scarlet tips her ears.

With a feeling of great trepidation, he follows her into the Great Hall.

Almost instantaneously, it's as though someone has muted the sound in the room, as though he has suddenly lost his sense of hearing. He lowers his head, feeling the tell-tale heat spread across his cheeks and wishing that he hadn't become so damn gangly over the past year.

There must only be about fifty people at breakfast but it's as though he can feel a thousand eyes boring into him like one of Uncle Vernon's drills, the unpleasant sensation more intense than ever because he's been without it for such a long time.

He clenches his teeth, forces his legs to move faster towards the Gryffindor table (as opposed to in the opposite direction) and lowers himself down onto an empty section of the bench seats, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone.

After skipping forward to collect both of their timetables, and Ron's, Hermione joins him, takes a piece of toast for herself, then lathers another two pieces with butter, raspberry jam _and_ marmalade before placing the horrifying excuse for a sandwich on his plate.

He looks down in bemusement.

"You're too thin," she explains with a huff, all the while waving her wand in a complicated motion so that his hair, which had been slightly wet from his shower, is now perfectly dry.

He opens his mouth, about to snap that he's perfectly healthy, has been looking after himself for more than a year now, and doesn't need a minder thank you very much.

He doesn't have to see her hopeful expression, though, to know that his prolonged absence is precisely the reason for her uncharacteristic displays of maternal fussing.

Not even slightly hungry, he takes a small bite of her disgusting creation.

She beams at him.

The chatter in the Hall, which had steadily risen during their brief exchange, swells louder still when screeching sounds pierce the air. Harry looks up promptly, his eyes seeking out Hedwig as they always had. It takes him a full ten seconds to remember that she won't be among the swooping birds rushing over the House tables, and why. He has to clench his teeth around a mouthful of suddenly dry toast.

"Harry, isn't that Andromeda's owl?"

Swallowing hard, he follows Hermione's gaze and realises that, yes, Andromeda Tonks must indeed have replied to the letter he had sent her from The Leaky Cauldron two days before. The owl doesn't even land at the table for a treat, just drops the tiny envelope in Harry's general direction and disappears as suddenly as it had arrived.

He reaches up, catches the floating piece of folded parchment and reads quickly.

_Harry,_

_You know you don't need to ask. When I promised that you would _always_ be welcome to come and see Teddy, I truly did mean it. In any case, Sirius left this house to you. It was kind enough of you to let us stay here; you certainly don't need to ask my permission to visit it. _

_Teddy and I are just relieved that you are safe and sound after all this time. We would be glad to have you whenever Minerva thinks it would be appropriate for you to leave the castle. Please make sure you have her permission; I don't want you getting into any trouble on our account. _

_Andromeda _

For the first time since his return, he feels a completely genuine smile spread across his face and a heady sense of relief fills him. He doesn't even mind that Hermione is reading over his shoulder, smiling broadly when she finishes.

"Oh that's wonderful, Harry! Teddy has grown so much. He's been walking for ages now! Andromeda has been trying to teach him to talk as well. I'm sure he'll love you. He always cries bloody murder when Ron tries to hold him. Ron hates it, of course, turns redder than a tomato. Everyone else thinks it's completely -"

Harry doesn't bother listening to the rest. He knows that Hermione means well - is just trying to fill him in on the things that he has missed, trying to keep him in the loop - but the simple truth is that between uncomfortable encounters with Ginny and people being so rude as to point right at him while he eats breakfast, he _doesn't _feel like he belongs back at Hogwarts. More than that, listening to her talk about Teddy is making him realise exactly how much of his godson's life he's already missed, and his stomach churns uncomfortably with an aching combination of shame and guilt.

"- loves Mrs. Malfoy, of course -"

He starts, almost choking on a bite of toast. "Wait, what? Mrs. Malfoy?"

Hermione breaks off mid-sentence, surprised.

"Oh that's right. Nobody's told you yet. After you had her acquitted, Mrs. Malfoy got back in touch with Andromeda. She apologised…begged for forgiveness, actually. Said that Andromeda and Teddy were all the family she had left. Swore that she would never again speak to Rodolphus Lestrange or any of the other Death Eaters that got away.

Of course, Andromeda refused to have any contact at first. Wouldn't even reply. But Mrs. Malfoy didn't give up. She sent so many letters that there were stacks of them lying around each time we went to visit Grimmauld Place." Hermione smiles softly. "Then finally, about six months after you left, Andromeda gave in."

Curiousity piqued, Harry leans forward. "Why? What changed her mind?"

"Malfoy did."

"Malfoy?" his voice is incredulous. "_How?_"

"Well, Andromeda was shopping for baby clothes in Diagon Alley one day. She stepped into Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes to see how George was doing. She put Teddy down on the counter for a second so that George could show her this new range of hair dying products he'd been testing. Teddy, he grabbed a handful of the fireworks Fred and George let off to annoy Umbridge in fifth year."

Harry's eyes widen in horror - he remembers that Weasley's Wildfire Whizbangs could be extremely dangerous if detonated with people close by, and in the hands of a ten month old…

Hermione takes a deep shaky breath. "Thank goodness Malfoy was behind the counter. He pulled the fireworks away, threw them into George's office and told Verity to take Teddy outside. Then he ran around the store, making sure that everyone else got out too. In the end, the shop was fine. Just filled with rockets and dragons and things. The office was completely destroyed, though, but George didn't care."

Shaking her head fondly, Hermione laughs aloud. "He said he was only glad that everyone had been evacuated, that all his merchandise was safe and that he'd been clever enough to keep his notes at home. After that, how could Andromeda keep refusing Mrs. Malfoy? It took some time - they hadn't spoken in about twenty-seven years, I think - but now, they talk all the time…and yes, Mrs. Malfoy is just about Teddy's favourite person in the world after Andromeda."

Harry looks away, pondering the onslaught of information he's just been given. He, too, is extremely glad that Malfoy had been there that day, and it is more positive emotion than he can ever remember feeling towards the Slytherin, but something about the story is bothering him. "But Hermione…what was Malfoy doing behind the counter?"

"He was working."

He gapes, mystified further by her offhand tone of voice.

"No, honestly! He helped out with the reconstructions, you know? He was at Hogwarts, every day. And then, on the weekends, he worked for George. Ron and I were there the day he came in to apply. Ron told him to get out, but he insisted that he was really good at Potions and that he would be able to help develop new products for the store and that he'd work free of charge. George could hardly say no; without Fred, he really did need the extra help."

"But _why_? Why would Malfoy do that?"

Hermione shrugs simply, as though she hasn't just sent Harry's mind reeling. "Feeling guilty, I expect."

"Guilty? _Malfoy?_ You've got to be joking!"

Hermione considers him with a very serious look on her face. "There's a lot you don't know about him now, Harry. He's changed."

"How? Tell me."

But Ron has just trudged into the Hall, yawning and rubbing blearily at his eyes. Harry straightens, jaw clenching tight. Despite his shaky peace with Hermione, he still has no desire to talk to Ron. She catches the sharp look he sends over her shoulder.

"You don't have to talk to him yet. I'll make him understand."

It's said in a supportive whisper, and in some distant part of his mind, he knows he should be grateful. Once again, however, he's barely listening to her.

He has just spotted Malfoy across the Hall, by himself, in the middle of something as mundane as breakfast, but the sight hits Harry like a sucker-punch to the stomach.

The last time he'd seen the Slytherin, it had been a dark London night, the light had been poor, he himself had been existing in a sort of painful daze, barely awake enough to register the way Malfoy had looked in the filthy alleyway.

He remembers some things though.

During his incarceration, Malfoy's pale eyes had sunken into his face, which had itself become wan and gaunt. In the green light filtering in from a dull streetlamp, his hair had seemed exceedingly lank and unkempt. His body had looked utterly wasted, scrawnier even than it had been during sixth year.

He had looked beyond terrible.

Now, though…

Now, Malfoy looks…amazing. Even Harry, who has never been one for noticing or cataloguing other people's features, can tell that his face and body wouldn't be out of place on a glossy magazine cover.

He has lost the unattractive, pointy look around his nose and jaw. He might have gained a couple of inches in height too - Harry can't be quite sure because the Slytherin is seated - and it's plain to see that he has definitely filled out in the upper torso. He's still slender, narrower in the shoulders than Harry or Ron, but there's a sense of strength about him that hadn't been there before.

His skin is as pale as ever, but rather than giving him an unhealthy cast, it contrasts sharply with the black Hogwarts robes he's wearing. This, combined with his white-blond hair, no longer slicked back severely, works to give Harry the impression that if he didn't know any better, he would guess that Malfoy, like Fleur and Gabrielle Delacour, had traces of Veela blood in his family from a few generations back.

But thinking about Veela leads Harry to the unpleasant realisation that he is staring across the Hall like a particularly obtuse gargoyle, _this_ short of gawking at Malfoy. Harry is so disconcertingly distracted by the Slytherin's attractiveness that he doesn't even notice until it is too late that the boy in question has noticed Harry's inspection and is gazing back at Harry, his face completely blank and his slate grey eyes unfathomable.

His cheeks, though…they are giving his discomfort away, slowly reddening under Harry's refusal to look away, the heat spreading down to his neck, disappearing into the collar of his robes in the most fascinating way. Harry doesn't think he's ever seen Malfoy blush before, but there's no doubt that that's exactly what the Slytherin is doing, and for the life of him, Harry can't work out why.

Nor, apparently, can he look away.

This feels familiar, this need to stare Malfoy down, this feeling that if he can only hold the blond's gaze for long enough, he'll somehow be able to perform Legilimency, extract every secret, every thought from him.

Why had Malfoy saved Teddy's life?

Why has he been helping George with the store?

Why is he sitting by himself, without Pansy Parkinson and Goyle on either side of him?

But…Malfoy isn't looking away, or down - isn't breaking like he always has. Despite the hot flush stealing across his face, his eyes are unwavering, his jaw is jilted upwards and his mouth is set in a hard line.

Taken aback, Harry wrenches his eyes away first, his heartbeat inexplicably thrumming in his ears.

This feels familiar too: this twisting in his stomach, the panic shooting up his spine, every instinct in his body telling him that he has to run. It hasn't been this severe in a very long time, and fuck if it isn't as jarring as hell.

He has to get out.

It's only the second day of Autumn, but the courtyard is so misty with morning fog that he can only just make out the outline of Hagrid's tiny old hut at the edge of the Forest, boarded up and seeming wholly unfamiliar to Harry without it's smoking chimney and sprawling pumpkin patch.

His whole body is shaking worse than it had during Anti-Dementor lessons with Lupin. He leans heavily against a stone column just outside the Entrance Hall, breathing hard, trying desperately to pull himself together.

Why had he willingly subjected himself to Malfoy's gaze? It had been the height of idiocy, engaging the Slytherin in the sort of staring contest that should be reserved for especially childish first years, knowing full well that to do so would draw a degree of attention that he just couldn't handle.

He pulls in a deep breath.

It will be fine. He just won't let anyone else make eye contact with him again.

* * *

><p>He walks in to Potions a few minutes late, shutting the dungeon door quietly behind himself, breathing a sigh of relief when a quick sweep of the dungeons reveals that Slughorn hasn't yet arrived.<p>

A second glance around, however, has him biting back a groan.

Seated in a small group unto themselves at the front of the room are Nott, Zabini and Millicent Bulstrode. At the table next to them, Terry Boot, Michael Corner and Anthony Goldstein are playing Gobstones.

The tables behind them, however, can only seat two people.

Ernie MacMillan is perched pompously on his stool, back ramrod straight, beside Zacharias Smith, the Patil twins are conversing in low whispers at their desk, and Hermione seems to be chastising Ron, who had evidently been throwing scrunched up balls of parchment at Seamus and Dean.

Every single one of the students that had taken Potions with Harry for their sixth year has returned for their eighth.

It's a full class and there is only one spare seat left in the dungeon.

He huffs in frustration, then throws himself into the empty chair beside Malfoy, hurling his backpack onto the floor, and crossing his arms over his chest. No one turns around, and he is silently grateful that the desk is located right at the back of the classroom.

Slughorn ambles in, a green and silver beret perched jauntily atop his grey hair, his wand pointed in front of him, levitating what appears to be several tall plants, purple-leaved and potted in Professor Sprout's special Greenhouse containers.

"Oooooh what are those, Professor?"

Slughorn beams happily, staring around at them all from the front of the classroom. "These, Miss Patil, are what Muggles would call Mexican butterfly weeds. They have been used for centuries as a heart stimulant by Muggle healers. The selection we have today, however, are a special breed; Professor Sprout has kindly cross-pollinated them with aconite and allowed us to use them today while we brew the Compareo Draught. Who can tell me what that is?"

Hermione raises her hand so quickly that Ron has to duck out of her way to avoid getting smacked in the face.

Slughorn's smile is indulgent. "Go on, Miss Granger."

"The Compareo Draught is used to cure Vanishing Sickness, a highly contagious disease. According to _Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions_, the potion was particularly useful during the early 1970s when a pandemic affected hundreds of people in southern Ireland. Those who were infected had to be quarantined at St. Mungo's for several weeks before the potion was administered and almost every person reappeared completely within the week."

"Yes, exactly!" Slughorn looks more impressed than usual, his huge middle wobbling under his robes. "Might I say that was excellent background research, Miss Granger. Fifteen points to Gryffindor! Now everyone, please set up your cauldrons and turn to page twenty-six for instructions. I will be at my desk if anyone needs assistance, but remember that I shall be grading each of you at the end of the lesson as a NEWT examiner would. As such, those who successfully complete the task by themselves can expect an Exceeds Expectations or even, dare I say it, an Outstanding as their mark for today." He winks conspiratorially in Hermione's direction.

Clapping his hands together briskly, he turns, clearly about to busy himself with the stack of unmarked essays that are sitting on his desk, but before he can lower himself to his high-backed chair, his eyes catch Harry's and widen almost comically.

"Harry! You're back, you really came back." His voice borders on reverence. Everyone turns to look at Harry, who ducks his head quickly. Malfoy, Harry notices from the corner of his eye, has also lowered his head, but unlike Harry, it is to hide the sardonic smirk that is spreading across his mouth. "But why ever weren't you at the Feast last night?"

Before Harry can even think of an acceptable excuse, Slughorn waves his hands in front of himself impatiently. "No matter, m'boy! No matter! We can discuss your little holiday over tea this evening, in my chambers. For now, it is time for everyone to begin their Draught."

Harry grits his teeth at being extended yet another offer to join the Slug Club, and having his horrible past year being likened to a_ holiday_, but he doesn't reply, not wanting to seem rude or ungrateful in the face of Slughorn's obvious favouritism. He's going to need it if he wants to pass his Potions NEWTs this year.

With the fire roaring under his cauldron, which is already half-full of rooster's blood, the juice of a crushed rat spleen and a putrid-smelling paste containing crushed beetles, Harry is now attempting to uproot his Mexican butterfly weed.

He twists the stalks this way and that with his hands, slashes them with his silver knife, even mutters "Diffindo" at the wretched plants several times.

Nothing works.

Pushing a lock of damp hair out of his eyes, he surveys the rest of the class. They all seem to be having the same problem, and not one of them has succeeded - not even Hermione, who is very red-faced and sweaty but still mulishly heaving at the orange buds.

Harry looks to his left, then starts. "How did you do that?"

Malfoy doesn't look up from his knifeboard, cutting up his already uprooted plants. "Magic."

His voice is bored, not spiteful, but it's still abundantly clear that he isn't about to start offering advice. Harry rolls his eyes, picking up his wand again, about to try some French severing spells the Defence Against the Dark Arts witch at Beauxbatons had taught him.

Before he can say a word, however, Malfoy sighs loudly, before pointing his wand at the container in front of Harry and muttering something under his breath. Immediately, several shoots fall away onto Harry's desk.

"Thank you." His voice is more shocked than he intended for it to sound, and Malfoy turns away abruptly. Harry steps forward, hesitating. "Listen, I also wanted to say thank you for what you did for Teddy. Hermione told me about how -"

"Sod off, Potter."

The voice is still drawling, but now there's an edge to it that leaves Harry bewildered. "What is your problem, Malfoy?"

"_You_ are my problem. Just because I helped you just this once, does not mean that we are now friends. It also does not mean that I want you speaking to me. Understand?"

"Right," Harry mutters under his breath bitterly, slicing up the flowers savagely with his knife: for all that he may have changed physically, Malfoy clearly still possesses every ounce of arrogance and pride that he'd inherited from Lucius.

Really, Harry muses later as he files out of the classroom, a vial full of his almost perfectly brewed Draught resting on Slughorn's desk, he had been a fool if he had been expecting anything different.

* * *

><p>The incident with Slughorn, the making of his Draught and his brief conversation with Malfoy all but drain him.<p>

He skips the rest of the day's lessons after informing a disapproving but silent Hermione that she should let the teachers know he doesn't feel well. He goes up to the dormitory, unbearably relieved to be by himself again.

Lying in bed, he stares blankly up at the canopy, sipping every so often on a flask of warm liquid he pulls from his trunk.

Inside is a Sleep Deprivation Draught and though he knows that it's a mixture really only used by Dark Wizards conducting torture or by Aurors conducting interrogations, Harry uses it to keep himself awake whenever he has run out of Dreamless Sleep Potion.

He had ordered a new batch from Slug and Jiggers Apothecary in Diagon Alley after realising that during his short week back in Britain, he'd somehow managed to work his way through the rather large supply he'd acquired in France. He expects that the parcel should be arriving with the owl post any day now. In the meantime…the fluid in his metal flagon is the only thing keeping him from drifting fitfully into unconsciousness.

He doesn't like falling asleep.

His dreamscapes have always been littered with shapeless, faceless, menacing shadows. He is well used to that. But for the past year, it has been the sensory impressions that leave him sitting bolt upright at all hours of the morning, shaking and gasping and sweating profusely.

It has been the sensation of having the Cruciatus cast on him - hot knives stabbing into the very marrow of his bones - or the feeling of ice numbing him to his core after hearing that yet another person in the Order has been lost.

It has been the sound of Sirius' low tenor happily singing God Rest Ye, Merry Hippogriffs…Mad-Eye's clunking gait…Tonks' sunny laughter…the mournful howling of a werewolf…the swish of Snape's robes…Dobby's sheepish smile…the feel of Fred's hand clapping him around the neck in greeting…and soft hooting sounds from a beautiful snowy owl that had comforted him during endless summer nights at Privet Drive.

Daylight fades outside the window. He considers briefly getting up to meet Slughorn, but dismisses the idea almost immediately, drawing his curtains shut tight with his wand instead. The others come in after dinner, keeping their voices down unnecessarily as he takes swig after swig from the flask, grimacing only slightly at the bitter aftertaste.

No. Harry doesn't like falling asleep at all.

* * *

><p><strong>Reviews are love, guys! Please let me know what you thought. I'd especially love to hear any con-crit you could offer :)<strong>


	6. Welcome and Unwelcome Surprises

He has worked himself into a pleasant stupor by the time Hermione violently wrenches his hangings open.

Feeble rays of pale sunlight stream in from the small window next to his bed, and he raises an arm lazily to cover his eyelids. Just in time too, because the next second, she is hitting him over the head with the Gryffindor scarf he'd left on top of his trunk the night before.

"You said you were going to the hospital wing!" She punctuates the yelling with sharp flicks of his scarf. "You said you would come back after lunch!" _Flick._ "You weren't even at _dinner_!" _Flick. Flick._

"Ouch! Hermione! What are you - get off!"

He rolls away, and glares up at her.

Her hair is a veritable haystack, sitting on top of her head in what may have been a bun last night. Now, messy tendrils have escaped, curling around her face, resembling the hair on one of those cave-women he'd seen once in a documentary with the Dursleys.

As such, Harry is utterly baffled when _she_ pauses to stare at _him_, open-mouthed and seemingly appalled.

"Oh Harry! Did you get any sleep at all last night?"

He shakes his head, casting a Tempus. Almost seven AM.

"I _knew_ I shouldn't have listened to Ron. I _knew_ I should've checked on you last night."

Nobody else in the dormitory is awake, but Hermione doesn't trouble herself with keeping her voice down. "Get up. Get showered and dressed. Then get ready to see Madam Pomfrey."

He groans, rubbing his aching temples. "Why?"

"Because I said so. Move. Now!"

Seamus groans loudly from across the room, his voice thick with sleep. "Merlin's beard, will the two of you please shut up?"

Dean murmurs blearily in agreement, then returns to snoring in the next second.

"Go with her, Harry." Ron pulls open his curtains, comes over to stand behind Hermione, his hand on her shoulder. "The bags under your eyes are practically purple." His voice is concerned, and it is that, not Hermione's impatient foot-tapping, which finally gets Harry out of bed and into the communal eighth year boys bathroom.

She is waiting for him at the bottom of the staircase, having just showered herself. Her hair is still wild, although this time it is due to the water that she hasn't bothered to brush away or magically dispel. She rushes out of the portrait hole without a word.

"Can you tell me exactly why we're going to the hospital-wing this early in the morning?"

Her voice is brisk, her pace so fast he has to rush to keep up. "No."

* * *

><p>Madam Pomfrey is already up and about when they enter. "Miss Granger, Mr. Potter! How may I help the two of you today?"<p>

Harry is glad the kindly matron isn't fawning over him, but watches with confusion as Hermione converses with her for several long seconds, their voices so hushed that he can't hear a word even though he is waiting only a few feet away.

After a few moments, Madam Pomfrey is standing in front of him, tilting his chin down with her hand, examining his face shrewdly. She reaches up, tapping him lightly on the top of his head with her wand, and he feels a warmth spreading down the back of his skull, neck and back, reaching all the way to the balls of his feet.

She steps back, eyes narrowed. "Hmmmm. Yes, I do think your assessment is correct Miss Granger. You were right to bring him."

Harry blanches; he hates being talked about as if he isn't there.

"Here, Potter. Drink this." She pushes a fat little decanter into his hands. He looks down warily, remembering all too clearly the nasty taste of the Skele-Gro she'd given him in second year. The corner of her mouth twitches. "Don't worry. It's only Pepper-Up Potion."

She sends him off to breakfast after that, Hermione watching him carefully as they sit down and fill up their plates.

"You can stop looking at me like I'm about to explode. I'm not mad. The potion helped. I do feel better."

It's true. His eyes are no longer aching, his stomach feels lighter and his hands don't shake when he pours pumpkin juice into his goblet and takes a hearty gulp.

Ron walks up to them, Hermione hastily begins talking to him so that Harry won't have to, and Harry watches Malfoy eating breakfast across the Hall, heartily wishing that he had studied Legilimency at Beauxbatons instead of shakily announcing to his Defence Against the Dark Arts class that he would rather not participate, all the while knowing that he must sound terrified as hell even through the Long-Term Translation Charm Madame Maxime had cast on him.

Early yesterday, he might have accepted without _too_ many questions that Malfoy had changed - had somehow learned to do things for other people without expecting some kind of reward or compensation in return. But after what had happened in Potions, he is no longer in the mood to grant the prat the benefit of the doubt. He doesn't trust Malfoy around George, and he certainly doesn't want him anywhere near Teddy.

Harry observes from under his lashes, and Malfoy doesn't seem to catch on this time, doesn't look up from his scrambled eggs even once.

Still.

As Hermione and Ron's whispered conversation fades into background noise, and the multitude of stares he is attracting suddenly don't even register, Harry has the unpleasant realization that there is a pattern quickly forming here.

* * *

><p>The three of them make their way down to Greenhouse Three, where they can see the rest of the class assembled, Harry and Ron walking on either side of Hermione.<p>

No one speaks the entire time, although Hermione opens her mouth on several occasions, shutting it awkwardly when Harry stares daggers at her each and every time.

"Potter, my goodness! How very good it is to see you again!" Professor Sprout welcomes him enthusiastically, and again, all eyes are on him. He tugs at his collar uncomfortably, pretending to be interested in a row of honking daffodils on the table next to him.

Thankfully, she doesn't dwell on the matter like Slughorn had. Putting her hands on her hips, she waves at a tray of seedlings in front of her. "Right. Let's get to it, class. We have a double lesson today, and there are twelve of you taking the eighth year course. I thought I'd divide you into groups of three and have you plant these Dancing Daisy saplings."

She beams proudly at the tray. "It should take you two hours at the very _least_, because this species is highly stubborn. Don't germinate too easily. Your task is to work out how to get them to really lay down some roots. Then, over the course of the year, it will be your job to look after them - during your own time." She smiles slightly as they all groan loudly. "Whichever group has the healthiest shrub at the end of the year will be in for a real treat!"

She waves a wand four times at the class.

"Arghh." Ron is tugged sharply to the left, next to Malfoy and Millicent Bulstrode, while Harry and Hermione find a scowling Zacharias Smith suddenly standing beside them.

Professor Sprout tuts sternly as several people shriek indignantly at being magically manhandled. "It will do you all good to practice some of that inter-house unity Professor McGonagall was talking about at the Feast."

Of course Hermione has already read all about Dancing Daisies so while everyone else seems to be fussing over their seeds, she whispers a quick Warming Charm at the soil they shovel into their container, digs a small hole with her fingers, places the tiny germs inside and -

"Already sprouting, Miss Granger? Haven't lost your touch, I see. Twenty points to Gryffindor!"

There's nothing for them to do now but sit at their table and take turns providing light moisture to their shoots. Harry notices that Zacharias Smith, delicately holding a small green watering can over their container, seems to be shifting uncomfortably in his chair, staring at anything but Harry.

He smirks. Good. The git should be ashamed of himself.

"And you too, Mr. Malfoy? Excellent, excellent. Twenty points to Slytherin."

Absently, without his permission, his eyes wander across to the opposite corner of the large square table on which the groups are working. Immediately, his gaze locks onto Malfoy, who is at that very moment, Harry notices with a jolt, talking quietly (and amicably) to _Ron_, of all the people in the world.

He can't take his eyes away.

Malfoy and Ron…well, it almost seems like they're friends. They are decidedly not yelling insults or hexes at each other. Instead, they are laughing at Seamus, who is furtively shoving strands of grass down the back of Dean's robes.

What in Merlin's name is going on?

Hermione had grown to tolerate Malfoy…that he could believe. But that Ron had actually become friends with him? Harry would just as soon have believed that Voldemort had decided to have a tea party with Dumbledore!

Malfoy had taunted Ron mercilessly for six straight years about the shabbiness of The Burrow, the Weasley's lack of money, the blood-traitor nature of Mr. Weasley's job. He had been calling Hermione a Mudblood since the age of twelve. In sixth year, he had let Death Eaters into the school, and in the ensuing chaos, Bill had suffered a minor bite from Fenrir Greyback. His father had knowingly given Riddle's Diary to Ginny in second year, and because of that, she had almost died in the Chamber of Secrets.

All of these offences would have been nigh on impossible for even someone as compassionate as Luna to forgive. As such, Harry had always assumed that Ron, who could happily nurse a grudge into the next century, would carry his hatred for Malfoy into the grave.

This is the reason he is suddenly sure that there must be foul play at work here. Why else would Ron now be watering his daisies with one hand while using his other to play a game of Wizard's Chess with Malfoy?

Harry's mind races.

Has Malfoy placed everyone that Harry cares about under some ridiculously powerful Imperius Curse? Has he brewed some kind of Persuasion Potion he picked up from the Death Eaters and tricked Ron, George, Andromeda and Hermione into ingesting it? Has he been controlling them using Legilimency?

"Harry, what's wrong? You look like you've just seen a ghost." Hermione's voice is questioning and soft.

"Er…I'm fine. Just have to use the bathroom. Come with me?"

Zacharias Smith shoots him a strange look, but Harry just grabs Hermione around the wrist and pulls her outside.

"What are you doing? We didn't ask Professor Sprout for permission! We'll get into trouble. Harry! Harry! Stop walking so fast!"

He waits until they've made it across the grounds and are standing in the middle of the Entrance Hall before spinning around and grabbing her by the elbows.

"What is it? What has he done to Ron?"

She looks completely bewildered. "Harry, you're scaring me. What has _who_ done to Ron?"

"Malfoy! He's done something to Ron! Didn't you see them in there? They were acting like…like…like they were _friends_." He spits the final word.

She pries his fingers away slowly, giving him a pitying look that confirms his worst fears. "Oh Harry, that's because they _are_ friends."

"But it's Ron! He hates Malfoy!"

"He _used_ to hate Malfoy. I told you. Lots of thing happened while you were away."

"What things?"

"Harry, I don't want this to turn into another fourth year. I'm very glad that you're talking to me again, but I think that if you want to know why Ron is fine with Malfoy now, you should ask him yourself." Her tone is gentle, but her eyes are hard, and he knows that no amount of begging or pleading is going to get her to change her mind.

"Fine." His voice is short.

"Oh Harry, please don't be like that."

He sighs, softening. "Fine."

"Look, I don't want to lie to you again," she says quickly, "so you should know that I'm friends with him too."

He stares, gobsmacked, voice weak. "But Hermione…all the things he said about you…"

"He doesn't say them anymore." Her voice is firm. "Look, just talk to Ron, okay? He'll explain everything." She casts a Tempus. "Second period's nearly over. I'll explain to Professor Sprout at lunch that you weren't feeling well. Let's just get to third period."

They are ambling down the third floor corridor, Harry's head still spinning with the idea that his two best friends have taken up with Malfoy, when a thought suddenly strikes him. "Hang on! I don't even know who the new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor is this year!"

Hermione starts smirking for some inexplicable reason. "Well that's what you get for not showing up to the Feast. And for missing meals yesterday."

"Hey! I went to breakfast."

"Right, but this year, the teachers are taking breakfast in the staff common room."

"Why?"

"Because McGonagall wants to know what they'll be teaching during the day in each one of their classes. It's a good plan, really. I know Umbridge was completely foul, but she had a fair point when she said some teachers had no idea what they were doing."

"But the only real problems were Hagrid and Trelawney, and he isn't even here this year."

"Neither is she. She's taken early retirement in Wales. And Firenze decided to return to the Forest with the other Centaurs. They're really much nicer now that so many of their herd were killed by the Death Eaters. Anyway, McGonagall decided to scrap Divination as a subject. You know she never thought much of it."

"Oh, thank Merlin!" Harry mutters fervently.

"Honestly, you didn't even glance at your timetable, did you?

"Nope."

"Well, you'll definitely be in for a surprise when you see the new Defence professor." She starts smirking again as the bell rings for third period and they walk into the classroom, taking seats side by side, leaving an empty space beside Hermione for Ron.

The class hasn't yet arrived from Herbology when the door behind the teacher's desk flies open, and Harry receives the shock of his life.

"Mrs. Weasley!"

She looks up from the large cage, covered in white cloth, which she is attempting to push through the doorway.

"Harry!" She wrestles wildly with the cage, indignant screeching sounds emanating ominously from under the cloth, before breaking through finally, and running over to Harry, engulfing him in a crushing embrace.

"Oh Harry! Thank goodness you've come back! I was so worried about you. Arthur told me I was being silly, but I couldn't help it. We had no idea where you'd gone. We searched absolutely everywhere for you!" She pulls away, eyes shining. She places hands on either side of his face, turning it this way and that, as if checking for injuries. "Don't you ever do that to us again!"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Weasley."

"No, dear." She grabs him again around the neck. "_I'm_ sorry. Ronald told me what happened after you left. I had no idea. I'm so very very sorry." Harry doesn't know how to respond to that, but he shakes his read roughly.

She looks lost for a second, before clearing her throat, voice softening. "Why weren't you in class yesterday, dear?"

"Oh, I did go to first period Potions, but I wasn't feeling well after that. I went up to rest in the dormitories."

Hermione snorts. Harry steps on her foot under the table. The last thing he needs is Mrs. Weasley finding out that he hasn't been sleeping. She would probably just end up blaming herself for that too.

"Oh I am going to kill Horace! He didn't say a word at breakfast!" She turns to Hermione, who immediately turns pink. "And neither you or Ron said anything either! I'm going to have some serious words with that boy when he makes it up here."

From the corner of his eye, Harry sees a flash of red hair at the doorway. "Oh there you two are! I was wondering where you'd -" Ron, who had clearly sprinted to class all the way from the Greenhouses, stops short at the sight of his mother standing over Harry.

Harry winces inwardly, trying to salvage the situation. "Uh, so, Mrs. Weasley, I didn't know you were teaching this year."

His poor attempt at distraction doesn't even come close to working. As Ron hesitantly draws closer, Mrs. Weasley's eyes narrow dangerously.

"So, you knew, did you? Why didn't you tell me Harry had come back?"

It's a small mercy there's nobody else in the classroom, because Mrs. Weasley's voice is nothing short of a deadly whisper.

Ron noticeably gulps. "Mum, just calm down alright. I thought Harry might like to tell you himself, that's all - OW! MUM!"

Ron is howling in pain, hopping from foot to foot. Mrs. Weasley has grabbed him by the right ear, and is proceeding to twist it savagely. "Mark my words, Ronald Weasley, if I didn't have a class to teach right now, I'd take out your father's dragon-hide belt, I don't care how old you are."

She releases him, and he cradles his ear, eyes watering.

"As it is, we'll be discussing this later." She turns to Harry, who shrinks back slightly. "Harry dear, come and find me at lunch. There's so very much I need to tell you."

Shooting one last glare at Ron, she returns to the front of the classroom, using her wand to write out instructions on the blackboard.

"Sorry," Harry mutters out of the corner of his mouth.

"Not your fault, mate." Ron leans forward, still rubbing his ear, to shoot him a small smile around Hermione. It fades with a sigh when he receives no response.

"Good afternoon," Mrs. Weasley beams at the class, now seated. "Yesterday, I asked you all to research Maleficus Bats for homework. Who has found some information they would like to share with the rest of us?"

Most people duck their heads, but Hermione raises her hand at once. "Like Chizpurfles, Maleficus Bats are drawn to magic, except they prefer to infest places with strong traces of Dark Magic. In a recent article by Newt Scamander, many senior Aurors reported that several of the Death Eater hideouts that were dismantled over the past year contained such infestations. As such, these locations had to be fumigated by experts from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures."

Hermione's voice becomes frosty as she delivers the final sentence, and Harry absently wonders if she is still campaigning for house elf rights through SPEW.

"Yes, that's correct. I'd like to show you a specimen I have here - you can all come up for a closer look at the end of the lesson, dears - but for now, please copy out notes under these headings," she gestures to the blackboard, "paying extra special attention to how one would protect themselves from Maleficus Bat swoopings."

Hermione looks scandalized at not having received any house points for her answer, but Harry supposes that Mrs. Weasley must still be upset about nobody telling her that he had returned to Hogwarts. He is glad that she is not upset with him at all, and pleased that everybody in the room follows her directions at once, speaking only when she walks by and asks them to individually demonstrate the spell to deflect swooping attacks.

Most people - Harry, Hermione and Ron included - successfully accomplish it, but those who can't receive no reprimand. Instead, Mrs. Weasley quietly demonstrates the wand movement and asks them to keep trying. At the end of the sixty-five minutes, everyone has managed it at least once.

During that time, Harry is just glad that Hermione had chosen a table right at the front of the room. It is the only thing that keeps him from seeking out Draco Malfoy for the entire lesson. Still, between Malfoy's alleged about-face and Mrs. Weasley's appointment as Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, Harry is fairly bursting with curiosity.

When the bell rings and they all eagerly clamber forward to surround the now uncovered cage, making faces at the ugly black bird inside, hanging upside down from a perch, staring unblinkingly back at them with blood red eyes, Harry decides that Mrs. Weasley really does make a great teacher.

She smiles widely and pats him on the head when he tells her so. "Remember dear, lunch."

"Actually, I have a free period right now."

"Oh, well doesn't that just work out perfectly. I haven't got another class for the rest of the day."

Hermione had filed out with the rest of the class, grinning about finally beginning Arithmancy for the year, but as he turns to follow Mrs. Weasley outside, he realizes that Ron had been waiting for him at the door, probably hoping that they could spend their free period together.

Mrs. Weasley glares sternly at her son. "You can talk to Harry later. I'm taking him to see the house right now."

Despite the anger that still sparks whenever he sees or talks to Ron, Harry grimaces apologetically on the way out.

* * *

><p>"Mrs. Weasley, are you sure I don't need permission to leave the grounds?"<p>

"Why, yes, of course, dear. Professor McGonagall won't mind. I am the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, after all," she smiles, but Harry can't help but notice that it seems slightly anxious…guilty, even.

He decides to let it go, chalking it up to paranoia, not talking as they walk along the path that leads out of the school. Instead, he sneaks glances at Mrs. Weasley as often as he can without being too obvious about it.

In the three months following the war and preceding his departure, she had been the very picture of despair: bursting into tears at sudden moments, during supper or while listening to Celestina Warbeck on the Wizarding Wireless Network; snapping into a fury whenever any of her remaining children made too much noise; holding George to her chest every morning, sobbing and rocking him back and forth as though he were a small child.

Harry had even seen her on the night of the Ministry dinner, had stopped by The Leaky Cauldron (where the Weasleys had been staying at the time), to ask her opinion about the sort of dress robes it would be appropriate for him to wear.

She had seemingly pulled herself together for the occasion. Her hair had been curled and coiffed into a fancy sort of bun on top of her head. The wine-coloured robes she had been wearing had hidden all the weight she had lost after the war. Her make-up had effectively concealed the lines on her face.

But Harry hadn't been at all fooled.

Suggesting in an airy, too-cheerful voice that the dark blue robes he had bought from Madam Malkin's would be lovely against his pale skin…babbling that she couldn't believe her entire family would be receiving an Order of Merlin (First Class) from the Ministry…asking absently why he hadn't been around to see Ginny and Ron more often.

It had been plain as day that she was still grieving for Fred just as much, if not more so, than even George.

Harry had walked out of her room, intending to look for Mr. Weasley downstairs - he could always calm his wife down - but had instead walked straight into Ginny, who had looked down, red-faced and pressing a letter close to her chest.

"Your mum needs you," he had mumbled, all but tripping down the stairs in his rush to get away from her.

Leaning against a wall on the landing below, trying to keep his anger at bay, he had been taken utterly by surprise when the door to the room in front of him had opened wide.

"Oh, hello there, Harry. I thought I recognized your footsteps outside."

He had sighed, glad to see a welcome face. "Hey, Luna. Are you here getting ready for the dinner?"

"Oh no, I'm not going to that. My father and I don't believe in the Order of Merlin system. Did you know that they're really just ways for the Ministry to place Locating Charms on powerful witches and wizards?"

"Oh…right. What's with the suitcase, then?"

"I'm catching a Portkey in half an hour. My father thinks it would be nice, if after everything that's happened, I took a holiday to Continental Europe."

He had grinned slightly. "To look for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks?"

"Yes, actually." (Harry had quickly rearranged his facial expression into one of mild curiosity.) "I was reading Newt Scamander's column in the Daily Prophet last week. He mentioned there had been rumoured sightings near Belgium. He did say the accusations were nonsense…but I'm sure I'll prove him wrong." Her eyes had been wide with earnestness, her waist-length hair hanging loose around her face. "Would you like to come with me?"

"Er…what?"

"Well I hope you don't mind me saying so, Harry, but you do look sort of terrible. It seems you could do with a holiday more than me."

His hesitation had lasted less than a second. "Yeah, okay. Give me fifteen minutes?"

He had run upstairs to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley's room to find it thankfully empty. He had penned a quick note on a scrap bit of parchment he'd found in his pocket. Then, he'd rushed to his small room at Grimmauld Place, packed a trunk filled with that handful of things he still couldn't look at but also couldn't be without, written Andromeda a letter, instructed Kreacher to have it delivered, dug up a large bag of gold from under his bed, Apparated to The Leaky Cauldron, and Floo'd to the International Portkey Office with Luna and their luggage, heart beating wildly in his chest.

Over the past year, he hasn't regretted that decision - hasn't wished he'd stayed.

But he has thought and worried about Mrs. Weasley more than anyone else - even more than Ron and Hermione. This kindly woman who had treated him with more kindness than his own aunt, who had all but adopted him into her family, who had pulled him aside one day about a month after the war to give him her late mother-in-law's wedding ring, whispering through tears that she'd always wanted Ginny to have it, not knowing that Harry would never be the one to give it to her daughter, looking confused when Harry had refused to take it.

Now, his covert glances show him that he needn't have worried so much.

Mrs. Weasley looks much healthier, as though she has been eating and sleeping properly, her face and body once again matronly, her skin glowing.

The walk along the stony path down the grounds eventually leads them to the great wrought iron gates that constitute the official entrance and exit to the school, set in an arch between a grey boulder wall.

When they keep going beyond that point, Harry finally speaks. "Mrs. Weasley, I thought we were going to your new house."

"We are, dear. It's just up here."

"Oh. I thought you would rebuild at Ottery St. Catchpole."

A shadow passes over her face. "After everything that happened, I couldn't live there anymore. The same way, I imagine, that Andromeda felt about her home after poor Nymphadora and Ted had passed on." She pats him on the arm. "It was so kind of you, dear - to give her Grimmauld Place."

Feeling distinctly unworthy of her praise (where, after all, is the kindness in giving someone a house you always despised?), he casts about for a change of topic. "It must be great…not needing private quarters at the castle."

"Yes, that is part of the reason we chose Hogsmeade. But it also just feels safer here. You know that it's the only completely magical village in all of Great Britain?" When he nods, remembering that Hermione had continually mentioned that very fact in third year, she continues. "Well, some time after you left, there was a mad rush to buy real estate in this area. The magical families…we all wanted to be around our own kind after what had happened. Besides, it was a great way for everyone to help with the reconstructions each day."

He feels a cold wave of guilt stab through him. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to help."

She stares at him incredulously. "Don't be silly, dear. You killed You Know Who. You saved us all. What more could anyone possibly ask from you?"

The constant need for diversion of the conversation is wearing on his nerves. "So…where is the new house? I must've walked right past it on Sunday night."

They have already gone by The Three Broomsticks, Madam Puddifoot's and the Post Office, and have bypassed the turn-off that would have taken them to Zonko's, Honeydukes and Dervish and Banges.

As they stop and wave to Aberforth through the grimy brown windows of The Hog's Head, receiving only what may or may not have been a nod in reply, and continue walking along fenced dirt alleyways, Harry distantly realises that this is the pathway towards the mountains on the outskirts of the village…towards the cave in which Sirius had hidden during fourth year. He forces away the lurch in his stomach.

"I don't think you would have dear," Mrs. Weasley says after she finishes grumbling about Aberforth's lack of manners, breathing heavily now and holding onto his arm for support. "There was no room in the village for any new houses, you see, so they had to clear a large portion of the surrounding woodlands. It's right along here…oh, here we are!"

For a second, Harry can't even breathe.

He had been expecting more of the thatched cottages that have housed the villagers of Hogsmeade during the approximately six years since he's been visiting the settlement.

Instead, there are a cluster of a few hundred medium-sized houses to his left that _would _remind him of Privet Drive, except for their obviously magical nature - multiple chimneys blowing multicolored smoke, tottering extra levels that have clearly been poorly self-administered, toy broomsticks and krups scattering many of the laws.

But it is the three dwellings standing on Harry's immediate right that draw his shocked attention.

There, he not only sees a tall three-storey building that looks stunningly like The Burrow (except perhaps less rickety and shabby-looking), but also Number 12 Grimmauld Place beside it, and behind both houses, blocking out all traces of sunlight with its magnificent towering shadow…

Malfoy Manor.

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><p><strong>Review? :D<strong>


	7. Filling the Blanks

Cupping a steaming mug of milky tea in his hand, he stares around at Mrs. Weasley's kitchen, taking in the hardwood floors, the expensive-looking furniture and the sparkling new cutlery and appliances which have been proudly placed on display on the sunny yellow cabinets.

He whistles softly. The new Weasley home may look like The Burrow from the outside, but it's completely different on the in.

"Wow, this place is great, Mrs. Weasley!"

She smiles proudly, directing the screeching kettle to pour water into her own teacup using her wand. "Thank you, dear! I decorated the place myself. It's not The Burrow, of course, but I do like it here." She leans forward conspiratorially. "Did Ron tell you that Kingsley promoted Arthur about six months ago?"

When he shakes his head, she looks even more put out with her youngest son. "Well, Arthur's now Head of The Improper Use of Magic Office!" She pauses dramatically, looking as though she expects Harry to offer congratulations.

He doesn't know what The Improper Use of Magic Office does exactly (even though he'd received letters from them in second year, after Dobby had dropped a large cake on someone's head, and again in fifth year, when he'd had to cast a Patronus to save both himself and Dudley from a pair of rogue Dementors sent after him by Umbridge), but from the look on Mrs. Weasley's face, he can guess it must be a very big career advancement for Mr. Weasley, probably accompanied by a healthy raise judging by the tasteful decor of the house.

"That's great! When will he be home? I'd like to congratulate him myself."

"Later this afternoon. He doesn't have the long hours that he used to when he was at Misuse of Muggle Artifacts, or with Scrimgeour's Office for the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects." At this, she suddenly looks stern. "He's still saying he misses all those Muggle things he used to see. Was even thinking about quitting, in fact."

She looks at Harry as though the very idea should be preposterous, so he schools his features into one of outraged disbelief. It seems to hearten her.

"Utter nonsense, of course! I told him so, I said, 'Arthur Weasley, if you go back to your old job, how on earth will we be able to afford this new house?'. We couldn't keep living at The Leaky Cauldron, and this area had quickly become so popular that to buy here, we had to take out a frighteningly large loan from Gringotts. Arthur and I had to put both our Order of Merlins up for collateral." She looks grim. "Those goblins, I tell you, they only have a nose for gold. They'd be glad to foreclose on us. Well, we won't let them. Arthur's making good money now, and George's little shops are doing so well, he said he could buy out this house from the goblins four times over if he had to." She shakes her head hastily. "Not that we'd ever ask him to, of course. But it's always something to think about if Arthur does go mad and throw in the towel."

Harry isn't quite sure how to respond to all of that. "Right, well…I'll make sure I come by later today to say hello to Mr. Weasley."

Strangely, she looks away all of a sudden, seeming incredibly interested in her tea. "I don't think that would be a good idea, dear. Maybe some other time…during the day. Maybe next weekend."

"But…you're the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, remember? Like you said, Professor McGonagall won't mind."

"No, Harry, I really think it would be best to wait until Saturday week. I'll make us all dinner." She smiles, and again, it seems rather forced.

Before Harry can comment, however, she has taken his empty mug out of his hand, Levitating it into the sink full of soapy water, and as though invisible hands have been waiting there all along, a bright green sponge is raised, doused with _Jane Peabody's Miracle Dishwashing Liquid_, and used to scrub gently at the porcelain.

"I have something for you, dear," she says hastily, standing to rummage around in an oak cabinet next to the pantry. "Ah, here it is."

She holds out her hand, smiling as though about to present him with a surprise, cradling what looks to be a large gold medallion fastened to a thick magenta ribbon.

He jumps up from his seat, stepping back from her outstretched pam. "Mrs. Weasley, do you know if Kingsley's convinced the Wizengamot to have Sirius awarded a posthumous Order of Merlin?"

She turns slightly red, not meeting his eyes. "No dear, I'm afraid not. He's been trying, really he has. But a lot of the members just won't budge. We'll only have to wait until the next election year to vote them all out, and then I'm sure Kingsley will be able -"

"And when's the next election year?"

She sighs softly, looking as though she's the one feeling the horrible disappointment now coursing through Harry. "They happen once every decade, so…another two years to go."

He grits his teeth. "You can keep that, Mrs. Weasley. Use it as further collateral. Use it to repay some of your loan. I don't care. I don't want it."

"Oh Harry, we couldn't do that -"

"Please, Mrs. Weasley?"

She looks at him for a long moment, before placing the shiny gold disc back into its drawer. "I'll just leave it here if you ever change your mind."

Really, he'd known that she wouldn't accept, but he also knows that the medallion can rot in that cabinet forever as far as he's concerned. He won't touch it unless Sirius' name has been cleared first.

"It's not perfect yet, but they truly have done quite a bit to improve things over at the Ministry. Did you know they tried Umbridge? She's serving a life sentence in Azkaban." Harry looks up sharply. Against all reason, his first instinct upon hearing Mrs. Weasley's proclamation, made while she whips a bowl of creamy white batter with a wooden spoon, is pity. But then he looks down at the faded white scars marring his right hand, thinks about Umbridge's toad-like face, her simpering smile and her sadistic use of that fucking Blood Quill.

His sympathy evaporates.

If anyone deserves Azkaban, that woman does.

"And after what happened with your trial the summer before fifth year, Arthur's constantly been recommending to the Wizengamot that the Decree for the Restriction of Underage Sorcery be reviewed. It isn't very fair, that children like you and Hermione aren't able to practice magic before coming here. In fact, Kingsley has been trying to establish a magical preparatory school, so that Muggle-borns aren't disadvantaged as first years at Hogwarts."

To Harry, it certainly does sound like the new Ministry has been_ trying_ to accomplish a great deal.

But it's a fleetingly mean-spirited thought. Kingsley is one of the most honest, decent and hard-working people Harry has ever known; he would be doing everything in his power to fix the corrupt and infiltrated system that Fudge had enabled, that Scrimgeour had inherited, and, for a brief time, that Pius Thicknesse had poisoned completely.

In any case, Harry thinks bitterly, curling his hands into fists so tightly that his nails dig into the skin of his palm, what had he himself done to help with the rebuilding efforts, both at Hogwarts and inside the Ministry?

The guilt that Mrs. Weasley has always been especially skilled at making him feel, perhaps due to some innate motherly gift, courses through his stomach once again.

"Kingsley's gotten rid of the Dementors at Azkaban. I'm not sure what happened to them, but it's wonderful we'll never have to go near them again. Dumbledore always told Fudge they had to go. We've decided to use wizard guards instead." She is counting down the fingers of her left hand, as though making her way down a long list of things she has to report.

"And Hermione! Has she spoken to you about her work with SPEW?"

When Harry shakes his head, she stops ladling her mixture into a frying pan sitting on the stove, turning to him with her hands on her hips.

"Good grief, have those two and Ginny told you anything at all? I rather think they owe you that, at least." Her expression is stormy, her usually kind brown eyes fierce with anger.

His throat feels tight. How can this woman be siding with him over her own son? Her own daughter?

"No, Mrs. Weasley, they've tried. I just haven't been in much of a talking mood."

She ignores him, shaking her head and muttering darkly under her breath, even as she returns to the sizzling hot pan.

"Hermione has been petitioning the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures all year. Well, whenever she could in between trying to patch things up with her parents, working on the castle and trying to find you," she flashes him a commiserating smile, as though anticipating his apology and letting him know that it's unnecessary, "and she's done so much already. They've decided to release house elves from all forms of master-slave magical bondage."

Harry feels a warmth spread through him at hearing that. He's glad that SPEW has finally managed to change things for the better.

He had always sided with Ron when they'd argued against Hermione's SPEW efforts, believing that it would be wrong to force the elves out of their servitude, insisting that the creatures didn't want to absolved of their servitude, thinking that Dobby had been the exception rather than the rule. But he's had a lot of time to reflect over the course of twelve months away, and he's come to understand that Hermione had always been right. The house elves can never have truly wanted their enslavement if it had been the way they'd been _made_ to feel by wizards since long before even the Founders' era.

"But then, the food at Hogwarts…"

"Yes, there are still elves up at the school kitchens. Minerva pays every one of them. Of course, now Hermione is saying the payments that families are required to pay their elves are dreadfully low. She's trying to get the Wizengamot to set what Muggles apparently call a 'minimum wage'." Mrs. Weasley waves her hand towards the ceiling vaguely, with the air of someone who has heard Hermione rant about one topic or another for hours on end, and has simply let the information pass from into one ear and out the other.

"She's even convinced them to demolish the Fountain of Magical Brethren. Kingsley has had it replaced actually." Mrs. Weasley's sudden smile reminds him worryingly of Hermione's expression earlier in the day, just before their Defence lesson.

"Really? With what?"

She looks as though she is now trying very hard not to burst into giggles. "You'll just have to pop into the Atrium one day to see for yourself, dear."

Harry's eyes widen as she uses a spatula to place a teetering stack of pancakes onto an extremely large plate, which she then carries over to him.

He forgets all about the new Ministry fountain.

"Oh no, I couldn't possibly eat all this, Mrs. -"

"Nonsense, dear! You're still much too thin." She pinches his cheek, hands him a fork. Glumly, he picks it up. "I'll just open some windows. It's already so dark out considering summer's only just finished."

She pulls back the thin purple drapes above the sink. There is no sunlight streaming through the glass, just the image of the grey-bricked Manor, standing four storeys tall in the distance. His hands reflexively grasp at the checked red-and-white tablecloth under his plate. Just a glimpse of the place brings back the kind of memories he would just as soon put behind himself.

"What is the Manor doing here?"

From the spacious living room, where it sounds as though she is throwing back more curtains, Mrs. Malfoy calls out, "What's that, dear?"

"Malfoy Manor, why is it here in Hogsmeade?"

She walks back into the room. "I told you, dear, the village has just become so popular. You must know that Andromeda hired magical contractors to move Grimmauld Place out here."

He had, in fact, known that.

During his time in France, Andromeda had been the only person with the ability to contact him - not through owl post, but through Kreacher, who had been able to locate Harry anywhere anytime through their bond.

In his departing note, Harry had not only left Grimmauld Place to Andromeda, but had also told her that she could use the grumpy old elf to contact him in an emergency (with the stipulation, of course, that he would appreciate it if she told everyone that Kreacher's connection had dissolved now that legal ownership of the Black home no lay longer lay with Harry).

As such, he had been terrified when, one night during his first month at Beauxbatons, the dying fire in his small private room had erupted suddenly into green flames, Kreacher's croaky voice announcing that Mistress Black would like to speak to him.

It had turned out that his momentary panic had been unnecessary. Andromeda had simply scolded Kreacher ("How many times must I tell you, you wretched creature? My surname is Tonks now!") before asking if it would be okay if she moved the house away from London. He had agreed readily, not really caring one way or the other, more concerned about how Teddy had been doing, waving softly when Andromeda had held his chubby little face up to the Floo call.

Absently, he wonders whether his bond with Kreacher has been severed now that Hermione's law has come to pass. He heartily hopes so.

"Don't tell me no one told you about that either?" Mrs. Weasley has apparently taken his silence as an answer in the negative, and now looks just about ready to explode on his behalf.

He hastens to reassure her before she really does take out Mr. Weasley's dragon-hide belt on Ron. "No, no, I knew! I…er, found out yesterday."

"Hmmm, well I really do think Andromeda should have waited until she had your permission first." Harry bites his lip guiltily, knowing he can't defend Andromeda without revealing that she'd known how to reach him all along; that would have landed her in far worse trouble with Mrs. Weasley.

"In any case, she paid to have the house transported in December, four months after you left, I think. We settled next door a few weeks later. Two months after that, well, Narcissa Malfoy and Andromeda finally managed to work things out, and Narcissa desperately wanted to be close to her sister again. The entire compound couldn't be uprooted - there just wasn't enough land here for the grounds, the personal Quidditch pitch, the gardens," Mrs. Weasley rolls her eyes at the horrible extravagance of the Malfoy home, "but the Manor itself was moved from Wiltshire and plonked practically into our backyard."

Mrs. Weasley really is Aunt Petunia's polar opposite in many ways, but Harry has long since picked up on the fact that they both have the uncanny ability to convey far more with their tone than with the words they actually speak aloud. In this particular conversation, then, Harry easily picks up on the barely contained disapproval in Mrs. Weasley's voice.

"And that's not a good thing?" he asks innocently, emphatically placing a large forkful of pancakes, smothered in syrup, into his mouth.

She beams at him, before lowering her voice as though about to share her deepest secret. "Don't tell Arthur I'm saying this - he'll be very cross with me - but I still don't trust that woman. She was so close to Bellatrix, after all, not at all like Andromeda. Of course, she's perfectly polite when we happen to meet at Grimmauld Place, but it's very hard to believe she's forgiven me. Between the two of us, dear, I'll be keeping a close eye on that one, especially now she's living so close by."

Harry really does think that the new job is starting to get to Mrs. Weasley's head just a little bit.

The last time he'd seen Narcissa Malfoy, she had seemed utterly broken by prison and her husband's death, barely capable of walking up his front steps the day after her acquittal, leaning back heavily against the ugly, uncomfortable armchair in the Grimmauld Place drawing room, tears trailing softly down her cheeks as he'd watched, not knowing what to do, uncomfortable in the presence of someone a thousand times more miserable than himself. She had thanked him, over and over again, ignoring his embarrassment, crying harder still when he'd told her that if he'd known of her predicament earlier, he would've defended her even if she hadn't called in the life debt, eventually drifting into sleep right there against the cushions, until he'd finally asked Kreacher to Apparate her back home.

No, he definitely doesn't think that Mrs. Malfoy is harbouring ill feelings towards anybody anymore, purely from lack of will and energy if nothing else.

But he nods along to Mrs. Weasley's dramatics, looking appropriately scandalized as she describes the interior of the Manor (that she'd had occasion to behold when Mrs. Malfoy had invited the Weasleys for tea one day), apparently every bit as 'nauseatingly pretentious' as the exterior.

"- and we couldn't decline the offer, of course, not after what Draco did for Bill, but I for one don't find it the least bit tasteful to flaunt -"

Harry straightens in caution immediately. "What was that about Bill?"

She breaks off her tirade. "Oh it's nothing, dear. Just that shortly after the war, Bill's bites started acting up during full moons. We're not exactly sure why, the Healers at St. Mungo's couldn't work it out. Fleur didn't say anything about it for months - that's why no one found until earlier this year - but she really didn't have much of a choice but to tell us in the end. She could hardly be expected to single-handedly cope with her husband running around the Forbidden Forest at all hours of the night while she could barely get out of bed by that stage, now could she?"

"Bill started transforming? I thought his bites were completely superficial. And what's wrong with Fleur? I hadn't heard that she was sick." Harry's heart speeds up, worrying about Ron's eldest brother and sister-in-law.

Mrs. Weasley's incredulous expression assuages his fears somewhat, until... "Sick? _Sick?_" She looks appalled, the mug in her hands shattering under her suddenly too-tight grip. Harry starts, but she doesn't even seem to notice the shards of white china now scattered across her kitchen table. "Oh, I am going to _murder_ the both of them!"

She marches into the living room, returning with a large wooden frame, handing it to him with great care despite her stormy expression.

"I just can't believe Ron and Ginny didn't say a word to you about even this! Forgetting about their own niece…imagine! Honestly, the children I've raised -"

"_Oh._"

Under the cool glass at his fingertips is a moving photograph of Bill and Fleur, sitting on a single bed, situated in what seems to be a small white hospital room, cradling a swathe of pink blankets between each other, positively beaming up at the camera despite their tired faces.

His face breaks out into a grin. "Mrs. Weasley, that's wonderful! Congratulations!"

She lunges across the table to pull him into yet another hug, sniffling. "Oh you are sweet. They've named her Victoire. Born in April so she's only a few months old yet, but still sharp as a needlepoint, that one. Knows just how to work her grandfather into getting exactly what she wants."

From the tender expression on her face, however, Harry is certain that it's not just Mr. Weasley that Bill and Fleur's daughter must have wrapped around her little finger.

"They live in one of the houses you saw earlier, so we get to see her all the time. Fleur always pops in for visits during the day while Bill is out working."

Mrs. Weasley's voice is warm when speaking about her daughter-in-law, softening almost as much as it had while talking about the baby. It's a fair change in attitude from just two short years ago, when Bill's choice of girlfriend had been a source of endless irritation for his mother. But, of course, Harry muses idly, you can't really keep disliking a girl who had stood by your son even after he'd been ravaged by a werewolf, and then gone on to deliver your first grandchild to boot.

"They left last week to holiday in France and to visit Fleur's family - show them the baby, you know." Harry's grin widens, thinking about Gabrielle Delacour meeting her niece for the first time, cooing over the child in her heavily accented English or perhaps simply in French, forgetting in her excitement that Bill doesn't speak the language.

She really had been so kind to Harry during his time at Beauxbatons: sitting with him at mealtimes and in the library when no one else had; speaking to him in English as often as she could (simply because he'd told her that the Translation Charm didn't, in fact, alter what a person said to him automatically to English, just provided a running commentary in the back of his mind that was both disconcerting and conducive to pounding headaches); madly waving him goodbye with Hagrid and Madame Maxime at the French International Portkey Office…

"Anyway, while Fleur was pregnant, Bill didn't…turn, exactly, but he did begin hunting in the Forest - oh no, not people, dear - just small animals…rabbits and things," she wrinkles her nose slightly. "After we found out, we didn't know what to do. Fleur was beside herself. She'd been hoping that taking him to St. Mungo's would fix the problem. But the Wolfsbane Potion wouldn't work, it would have been too strong because Bill wasn't a fully-fledged wolf."

She takes a deep breath that seems to shake with rage. "The Healers told him he couldn't keep roaming the Forest, not with the chance there'd be people about. We kept telling them that Bill was really just harmless, but they wouldn't listen. They even called the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, who said that Bill would have to be tied up in a Warded Isolation Cell at St. Mungo's during the full moon week each month. They'd already been doing the same thing to a girl in your year - a Lavender Brown, I think - as well as many other people, from what I understand, for quite some time. Not even Kingsley could get them to change their minds about the policy."

Harry listens to her story, aghast, wondering how he'd missed the fact that Lavender hadn't returned to Hogwarts for eighth year.

"We left the hospital, Bill trying desperately to comfort Fleur, the poor dear. We were already in London, so we thought we'd pop in to see George for a bit, give him the awful news ourselves. Draco was at the counter and I suppose he must have heard us talking…a few days later, he and George Apparated into the house, telling us to call Bill and Fleur over right away. It turned out that they had managed to modify Damocles Belby's original potion. They'd weakened it just enough that Bill and everybody that had sustained minor bites from You Know Who's wolf pack could be themselves again, even through full moon nights."

She smiles triumphantly. "After that, we gave the potion to the Apothecaries, free of charge, and the Healers and the Department representatives had no choice but to stop placing all the people on the Semi-Turned Werewolf Registry in a monthly quarantine."

She's still beaming, but her nostrils flare slightly. "Fleur refused to have Victoire delivered at St. Mungo's after what happened - quite rightly, of course. They found a small private magical hospital in Dublin instead. If Draco hadn't come up with the potion, I'm not sure Bill would have even been there to see the birth." She shakes her head, as though in disbelief. "We owe that boy so much. If it weren't for that all that strangely-coloured hair, I'd never believe that Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy were his parents. You know I would never speak ill of the dead, Harry, but when I heard what happened to Lucius in Azkaban…well, good riddance is all I'll say. Draco really is much better off for it."

Her voice is filled with warmth, gratitude and affection, as though she's spent a lot of time with Malfoy over the past year, and, like Hermione and Ron, has completely forgiven him everything - even, it seems, being indirectly responsible for her eldest son's condition to begin with.

Harry's head is spinning from all the information he's received over the past hour. Mrs. Weasley chatters on after whisking his now empty plate away, but he isn't able to think about anything but the fact that Bill has a baby girl, that Malfoy philanthropically saved a large group of people condemned to a horrible fate (by Healers, no less), and that Andromeda and Teddy are probably at home, right next door.

He has loved spending his free period with Mrs. Weasley, and her penchant for gossip and story-telling has filled him in on so many things, but the realization that Teddy is currently only a few feet away from him, fills Harry with a sudden, desperate need to see his godson.

"- and the price of the vase was positively exorb -"

"Mrs. Weasley, do you think it would be okay for me to walk over and visit Grimmauld Place? It's just been a while since I've seen Teddy."

She hesitates. "Perhaps it would be better to do that next Saturday, Harry. I'll invite them both for dinner too, shall I?"

She won't meet his eyes, bustling about the kitchen with a dustpan, scooping up pieces of her broken teacup. "Right. It must be nearly time for your next lesson. We'd best be going, I think."

His eyes narrow slightly. He decides to test his sudden suspicion. "Oh no, that's okay, Mrs. Weasley. You don't have any more lessons for the day, after all. I'm fine to get back on my own."

Sure enough, her eyes dart from side to side. She seems to flounder for a split second. "Don't be silly, dear! I'll walk you back. I can tell you more about my furniture shopping."

This time, he knows the sense of misgiving creeping up his spine isn't the result of paranoia.

Yet again, there's something he isn't being told.

As they hurry back down up to the castle in an attempt to keep Harry from running late to Charms, Mrs. Weasley alternately exclaiming at his growth spurt ("Good grief, you must be almost as tall as Bill now!") and disapproving his lack of glasses ("They made you look so much more dashing, dear."), Harry resolves to find out exactly what that something is.

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><p><strong>I'm sorry! So much plot, I know!<strong>

**But Harry **_**will**_** finally have his first real conversation with Draco in the next chapter, I promise! **

**Review or PM to tell me whether you'd would like for it to be:**

**a) angry/filled with insults (I like this kind of initial interaction the best)  
>b) awkward as fuck (also quite appealing)<br>c) distant/civil/consisting of them forming tentative friendship (hmmm bit too fast for my liking, but I'll go with whatever you guys want)**

**Let me know :)**


	8. A Little Bit Broken

In the fortnight leading up to the re-opening, when reconstructions have been completed and volunteers are no longer required at the castle, Draco takes to wasting the entire day in his room at the Manor, keeping well clear of human company, especially his mother's. He even stops going in to help George and cuts off contact with Weasley (who would never be 'Ron' in Draco's mind) and Granger altogether.

He is afraid that people will take one look at his face, and just _know_ what he is thinking. Because really, as the first day of September approaches, his mind is so completely focused on one singular thing - or person, rather - that Draco assumes his stupid feelings must be plain as day for all and sundry to see, as if they had been scrawled across his forehead in ink.

Whenever he tries to divert himself, angry that just the idea of Potter can make him feel as anxious as a fourteen-year-old Hufflepuff fan-girl, he reads his textbooks, trying to soak up as much information as he can before term begins.

He has been placing second in his grade every year up to and including fifth, but he has plans to change that this time around. He might be kind of friendly with Granger now, but that doesn't mean he isn't going to try his hardest to graduate with straight O NEWTs - for himself this time, so that he can do whatever he wants after school, _not_ for his father's approval.

With this in mind, he studies hard, sometimes during the day with the last rays of summer sun pouring in from the bay windows in his room, sometimes into all hours of the night using the light of a kerosene lamp. It isn't taxing for Draco - he hasn't been sleeping well anyway. At best, he can manage two, maybe three, hours a night. He's become used it to, really. It has been happening ever since Azkaban. No more dreams, just the inability to drift into unconsciousness until the early hours of the morning.

As such, in those last two weeks, the house elves bring all his meals to the room while he memorizes spells and makes copious notes and brews several potions that they will be studying that year.

Mostly though, to his great consternation, he just keeps thinking about Potter.

The anticipation, the burning, twisting hope, that Potter will be coming back from wherever he'd fucked off to, the idea that Draco would be seeing him again - in classes and at mealtimes and in the corridors…

It is enough to keep Draco occupied for hours, on edge, wearing his carpet with incessant pacing.

Merlin knows he's thought about the boy wonder often enough over the past year, while lying awake in bed or while in the shower. So, then, deep down he's perfectly aware that his anxious need for the first day of term to just _get here already_ is evidence of the fact that it's _not_ just a physical attraction, this thing he has where Potter's concerned. But just as he had evaded discussing the issue with Pansy, so too does he avoid confronting, even to himself, exactly why this is so important, the fact that he'll be seeing Potter in the flesh again.

Then, the morning of September first dawns, a grey Sunday, and he's barely able to spoon his porridge into his mouth at breakfast.

"What is it, darling? Has Poesy burnt it again?" His mother's voice is weak and tired.

The tiny creature in the corner, dressed in a clean white tea-cosy, waiting for them to finish so she can clear their dishes away, trembles violently. Why, Draco doesn't know. Granger's new laws stipulate that corporal or verbal abuse is no longer acceptable against the elves. In any case, his father had always been the one to punish the help.

"No, Mother, not at all." He eats as much as he can, left hand twisting under the table, clenched tight around a rolled-up copy of Rita Skeeter's article from the day before, the one that all but confirms Potter is coming back.

Packed and ready, Draco does nothing but pace for the entire day. When the sun disappears over the horizon, his mother walks him through Hogsmeade, up to the school gates. She looks as though she is going to burst into tears at any second. A side-effect of the war, this proneness she's developed to (often bed-ridden) weeping.

He loves her more than he's ever loved anyone, and he's going to miss her too, but they've never been a particularly demonstrative family, so he presses his right cheek to hers just as he had for seven consecutive years on Platform Nine and Three Quarters. To his surprise, she draws him into her arms like she had when he'd been a small child, pulling away only after several long minutes, pushing him gently towards the gates, brushing her eyes with her left hand, his father's ring still there.

His stomach clenches painfully as he walks away from her, relaxing only slightly when he remembers the promise he'd extracted from his Aunt Andromeda - that she would take her of his mother.

He nods to Granger and Weasley on the way inside the Great Hall, still mostly empty because the carriages haven't arrived yet. They perk up and wave back madly, looking like a pair of graceless idiots truthfully. He rolls his eyes, despite the fond smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Without Pansy and Vince and Greg this year, it's nice to have people notice, and be glad, that he's there.

Draco doesn't talk to anyone as the tables fill up, doesn't hear a word of the Sorting Hat's song, doesn't clap when terrified-looking first years scurry over to join the half-empty Slytherin table.

His palms feel sticky.

Where is Potter?

Why isn't he at the Feast?

Several times, he glances over to the Gryffindor table to see that Granger and Weasley look about as restless as he feels. So they had been expecting Potter back too. Beside them, Weasley's sister seems to be either on the verge of tears or about to curse someone with her horrible Bat-Bogey Hex, Longbottom helplessly patting her on the back.

Over the past year, Draco hasn't ever so much as asked Granger or Weasley a single question about Potter (it would have been too uncomfortable with all that history) - but Pansy, with her love of collating and spreading good gossip, had told him once in seventh year as they passed notes to each other in class, with that horrible Alecto Carrow smiling at them indulgently, that while Potter had been MIA from Hogwarts, Ginny Weasley had taken up with Longbottom instead. Draco hadn't seen much of either of them during reconstructions, but he _had_ overheard Granger, about a month ago, telling Dean Thomas that the Weaselette had been signed onto the Holyhead Harpies side for the next six months, would be taking Longbottom on tour with her, the pair of them not returning to finish their schooling.

As such, Draco doesn't know why, as someone not even attending Hogwarts, and as Potter's _ex_-girlfriend, _she_ should be looking so upset at his continued absence. More worryingly, he doesn't understand why, as someone who had formerly claimed to hate Potter with such shocking regularity that even Vince had told him to shut the fuck up once, he himself should be glaring daggers at Weasley's sister, a feeling of _completely_ inexplicable sense of envy burning through him.

McGonagall stands and makes her address. He doesn't exactly pay attention but claps politely when it's over anyway because when he'd offered his services in the reconstructions, she'd only pressed her lips together for a few seconds before bizarrely offering him a ginger biscuit, and saying, "Well then I do hope you're prepared to spend twelve months working very hard indeed, Mr. Malfoy," her harsh Scottish brogue matching her severe expression.

After another thirty minutes, the chattering among returning students dies down. The extravagant platters of food weighing down the tables disappear. People start moving towards the exit.

The Feast is over and Potter hasn't come back.

Draco tries not to think about why that makes him feel like he's going to be sick.

* * *

><p>After that almost debilitating encounter with Potter during Monday's breakfast, he is absolutely useless for the rest of the day.<p>

In that morning's Potions lesson, he feels like someone has simultaneously cast a Cheering Charm on him _and_ locked him in a room with a Dementor. He can feel himself trembling for the entire hour, not knowing what to do now that he is actually sitting right next to this person that he hasn't been able to stop thinking about for so long. Especially when Potter clearly wishes he could be anywhere else if the extremely wary (and extremely fleeting) looks he keeps shooting Draco are anything to go by.

Draco doesn't even know why he acts like such a bastard during the lesson. By all accounts, he had been ready to get down on bended knees and beg for Potter's forgiveness after what had transpired at the trial…but that had been before Potter had left.

Is that the reason, then, that the instant Potter speaks to him in a quiet voice infused with sincere gratitude for saving Teddy Lupin's life, Draco feels an irrational burst of anger welling up inside himself? Does he resent Potter for his disappearing act, leaving behind the Weasleys and Granger and Teddy and…other people who might have relied on him?

He doesn't understand the artless tumble of feelings rolling around in the pit of his stomach.

All he knows is that they make him want to punch Potter right in his stupidly handsome face. And they make him want to yell and ask where the fuck Potter has been for the past year. And then, when Potter doesn't show up for the day's remaining lessons, they make him want to hunt the bastard down and shake him, over and over, until he would just start making some fucking _sense_.

He breathes a little easier when, over breakfast the next day, he sees a familiar mop of messy black hair across the dozens of students milling around the House tables, and then Potter is there during all of the day's lessons, Herbology (though he does inexplicably run out with Granger about halfway through) and Defence Against the Dark Arts and Charms, sometimes throwing unfathomable glances at Draco, but otherwise keeping his distance.

Later, as Draco is walking out of Tuesday night's dinner into the Entrance Hall, he frowns in confusion when he sees Oliver Wood and Katie Bell walking into the castle from the Pitch, laughing together, each carrying broomsticks and sporting wind-swept hair.

"Malfoy, just the person we wanted to see!"

He cringes away from Katie's voice, the first time he's heard it in about two years, meets her eyes hesitantly. She isn't smiling, but nor does she have her wand out, so he walks over slowly.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to hex you." There is a pause. "But only because I'm technically a professor now, and I'm not allowed."

Wood tries to muffle his laughter while Draco tries to quell the churning in his stomach.

"Katie, I'm really -"

She holds up a hand. "Save it. I just want to talk to you about Quidditch." Her tone is extremely curt. "I know the Carrows suspended all games during your seventh year, but you were made captain of the Slytherin team the summer holidays before right?"

"Yes. But McGonagall isn't letting any of the eighth years play. I think Sourav Kartik's been made captain this year."

"He has, but he's quite hopeless, really."

Wood cuts in, voice scandalized. "It's an outrage, how terrible all the teams are. We saw them at tryouts yesterday. No technique, no finesse!"

Katie nods. "And Madam Hooch has taken a year's leave, for a holiday in Africa with her husband, to tour the Cleansweep factories they have over there apparently."

Draco eyes the broomsticks they are holding. "Is that why the two of you are back then? To be the new Quidditch instructors?"

"Sort of, " Wood says, "McGonagall asked us if we'd do it together - share the responsibility, you know - because we're both still playing for Puddlemere. But even with the two of us here three afternoons a week, scheduling is still a bit of an issue. We're good to teach the first years on Mondays, the Ravenclaw team on Tuesdays, and the Hufflepuffs on Wednesdays…but Thursdays and Fridays we've got all-day training sessions ourselves, and our weekends have been reserved for games."

Draco nods. "And you want me to take the Slytherins."

They nod, looking uncertain.

He shrugs lightly. "Sure."

Their expressions clear instantly. "Great! Thanks, Malfoy. We weren't sure if you would agree." Katie beams at him, and he exhales in a rush of relief, feeling just slightly awed. Could it really be that easy to earn her forgiveness after almost killing her with the Opal Necklace? Shouldn't he…offer her some money or something?

Before he can ask, however, Wood's eyes slide up, over Draco's shoulder, and he smiles widely. "Harry! Over here!"

Potter is leaving dinner with Luna Lovegood, her waist-length hair blonde and straggly over her shoulders. They both look up at the shout, Potter's face breaking into a wide grin that nearly stops Draco's heart, and then he is running over, not even noticing Draco, throwing his arms around Katie before shaking hands with Wood enthusiastically.

"I haven't seen the two of you in ages! How have you been? What are you doing here? Aren't you both still playing for Puddlemere?"

Draco turns away, about to leave them to their conversation, but Luna has walked over too and is standing in front of him now. "Hello, Draco. It's been a very long time since I last saw you, although I can't say I miss being locked in your dungeon." She smiles softly, as though referring to something as mundane as the weather, and not, in fact, the torture she suffered in his Manor. "How have you been?"

He blinks at her matter-of-fact tone and forces away the gut-wrenching jealously that had seized him upon seeing her with Potter, the pair of them obviously very close.

"I've been well. Thank you for asking."

"Actually, I wanted to thank _you_ for the donation you made to The Quibbler last year. It was very generous, you know. The largest we've ever received."

He nods slightly, feeling his face heat just a little. "You're welcome. I'd better get go -"

"Harry! What are you staring at? Pay attention, this is important! We said your first training sessions have been scheduled for the upcoming Saturday and Sunday evenings."

"_What?_"

Draco turns back curiously to see Potter's thunderstruck expression and Wood's perplexed frown. "Saturday and Sunday, from six to nine. We'd take Gryffindor ourselves, but the team is so terrible this year that they need more than one session, and we just don't have the time to spare."

Draco feels his heart give a funny little wobble in his chest. Right. So they've asked Potter to coach too. Which means that Potter will be flying again. Which means that Draco will be watching Potter flying again.

He catches Luna's wide-eyed gaze, a bit too knowing for his liking, and pretends that the very idea doesn't wreak havoc with his cardiovascular system.

"No, it's not that. I don't mind two nights. But can't I take them on a day other than Saturday though? Any other day? It's just that I've got dinner plans with the Weasleys and Andromeda Tonks that night."

Wood seems very uncomfortable indeed, eyes darting over to where Draco is standing with Luna, a few feet away. "Uh…we've actually got Malfoy booked for the Pitch on Thursdays and Fridays. Sorry."

Draco rolls his eyes when Potter turns to him, looking resigned, as though he knows better than to even ask for a time-swap. "Take whichever one of those days you want, Potter. It's fine."

Potter looks comically surprised for a second, before Katie breaks in. "Actually, Harry, two of the Gryffindor Chasers are in the Chess Club this term, and they're supposed to be attending meetings every weeknight for the first two weeks of the year." She pats a glum-looking Potter on the shoulder. "Cheer up. Maybe you can have that dinner next weekend."

* * *

><p>Before Draco knows it, he is already into the second week of term.<p>

During this time, his eyes seem to be automatically drawn to Potter with disturbing frequency: to his blush when Molly Weasley pinches his cheek during their third Defence Against the Dark Arts class, to his delighted surprise on Monday of the second week when he discovers (having missed the previous week's lesson) that Charlie Weasley is their new Care of Magical Creatures professor, to his glazed expression as Professor Binns' drones on ad nauseum about goblin rebellions ("How many could there possibly have been?" Draco wonders resentfully, continuing to take notes out of sheer willpower alone.)

It is as though his subconscious is trying to make sure that Potter won't up and leave again. Draco had known it would happen, of course, this constant spying business that Pansy would have described as verging on psychosis…so the compulsion to just keep staring at Potter isn't too distressing for him, old habits dying hard and all of that…

But apart from this reaction, his first ten days back at Hogwarts are not at all like he had been expecting.

The eighth years are scheduled to begin Muggle Studies, now mandatory for all students, for the first time on Wednesday, the fourth day of September. The professor is a young blonde Scandinavian witch named Louise Ebel. Draco supposes that if he swung that way, and if she didn't have just the slightest accent (it may have been slight, but it grated on his nerves for the entirety of the sixty-five minute period nonetheless), he might have found her quite attractive.

Despite that, however, he likes her, and he likes being in her class, even if he does have to sit next to Blaise, who is _still_ only giving him one-word responses. She doesn't mention what happened to Muggles and Muggleborns and indeed the former Muggle Studies teacher during the war, even though these are the very reasons McGonagall begged her to leave a private wizarding school in Denmark to teach them and even though every single student is thinking about those very things during her lesson.

And as if that isn't cause enough for her to have earned Draco's approval almost immediately, she doesn't simper all over Potter either, which is a nice change, even though Draco doesn't know whether it's because she doesn't quite understand just what Potter has done, or if she does know, and simply doesn't believe in favoritism. The final thing he likes about her is that she has a no-nonsense approach to teaching that makes her seem like a younger, non-tartan-wearing version of McGonagall, which makes it easier for him to listen as she babbles on and on about visual forms of Muggle entertainment with that truly aggravating accent.

Another thing that doesn't go quite as planned is the treatment he receives from two-thirds of the Golden Trio.

Somehow, he had thought that, now Potter had returned, Granger and Weasley would stop talking to him like they had for the past approximately eight months (well, seven really, because it had taken four weeks of working at Weasley' Wizarding Wheezes before Weasley had approached him to mumble something that might have been "Thanks for helping George."). But although Potter himself steers well clear of Draco during eight of the nine subjects they have together, and as much as he can while sitting at the same table during their next two Potions lessons, his best friends are still apparently perfectly happy to speak to Draco whenever they see him.

He finds that these moments make him feel unaccountably happy. It's still strange, thinking of them as friends - good ones too, no less, though he doubts he will ever admit that aloud. Especially when most members of his own house generally only talk to him when necessary, while Theo, with whom he'd always been on quite good terms, doesn't talk to him _at all_ during those first ten days. He assumes it's because they haven't seen each other for a year and because the boy is still grieving over what happened to his father in Azkaban (Draco would be horrified too if Lucius had received the Kiss - and not even because of Ministry sentence, but because the Dementors had been furious at Kingsley Shacklebolt's dismissal).

On Wednesday night during their second week, however, it becomes glaringly obvious that depression isn't the reason for Theo's withdrawal. Blaise is already in bed, his hangings shut, and Draco is sitting at his desk, shivering but shirtless, writing a letter to his mother - his first since term began - when Theo walks in from the bathroom.

"How is she?"

Draco is so pleased that they seem to be speaking again, and he's concentrating so hard on his letter, wanting to reassure his mother that all is well, that he misses the malevolent glint in Theo's eyes. "How is who?"

"Your blood-traitor bitch of a mother, of course."

His eyes fly up immediately. "What?" Surely he'd heard that incorrectly.

"I said, _Malfoy_, that your mother is a dirty, Mudblood-loving whore who stood back and helped Harry Potter defeat the Dark Lord." He says it almost lazily, continuing to towel-dry his hair. He grins maliciously. "So how is she?"

Draco takes a deep steadying breath, fighting for control, clenching his quill so tightly it snaps into two. "Look Theo, I know you must be very upset right now, and I know how you feel. My father -"

"You know nothing about how I feel, Malfoy. Everyone knows you hated your father. But you'll find out soon enough what it's like, I'm sure. Your mother's been sick as a dog, hasn't she? Exactly what she deserves, if you ask me."

Draco sees red, dropping his broken quill and lunging forward, the movement so sudden it catches Theo completely off guard. The first punch gets him on the side of the face, the second just under his jaw. He steps back with a pained yell, ducking his head and clutching his face, but Draco doesn't let up, pounding wildly at his shoulders. "You bastard! You take that back!"

He feels a pair of strong hands grab him around the elbows, pulling him back, Blaise' deep voice in his ear, telling him to calm the fuck down. But then Theo is hitting him back, taking advantage of the way Blaise has his arms pinned back, his face and body left wide open.

Blaise lets go immediately, trying to get in between them now, but it's no use. Draco doesn't know how every blow seems to take the breath out of him when Theo is so slender, even more so than Draco himself, but there it is: hooked assaults to the face that have his neck snapping back, blood spurting out of his nose, falling freely from a split lip; Theo's fists driving into his torso so hard, his legs give way; relentless kicks to his sides as he lies in a heap on the floor.

Eventually, they stop, and he squints up through swollen eyelids to see that Blaise must've finally remembered that he's a wizard because Theo is up against the wall, bound tightly in what Draco recognizes as Incarcerous ropes.

"With Crabbe dead and Goyle at Durmstrang, you're just pathetic, aren't you?" Theo thrashes against the ropes. "Damn it, Blaise, get these off!"

Blaise looks shaken, hands unsteady around his wand. "I'm taking him to the hospital wing."

And he does, Levitating Draco out of the dormitory, out of the common room, down two corridors, up a flight of stairs and onto an empty bed in the wing. But that's where his assistance ends, it seems.

"Sorry Malfoy, there's nothing else I can do. My mother says it's not safe to be seen speaking to you with the Death Eaters still on the loose." His voice is genuinely sorry and he hesitates before leaving, but leave he does, Draco unable to stop him or yell out for Madam Pomfrey.

He curls his aching body inwards, and waits for morning, the ugly scars across his chest reminding him that he'd made it through a night in the wing before, and the situation had been much more critical then.

* * *

><p>"Come back for more Pepper-Up, have you?"<p>

"Yes, please. I mean, if that would be okay."

The voices sound distant through the haze of pain clouding his brain, but logic dictates that they must be in the corridor outside, if he can hear them through the open doorway. He swallows through the aching in his throat and jaw, opening his cracked lips, readying himself to shout out.

"I didn't want to say anything last week in front of Miss Granger, Potter, but my diagnostic spells indicate that you're showing signs of mild substance abuse. Both Dreamless Sleep and Sleep Deprivation Draught unless I'm very much mistaken."

Draco shuts his mouth, shock momentarily numbing his agony.

Potter?

Substance abuse?

For a few heartbeats, there is silence.

"Yes, that's right, I know. And I must say, I am very disappointed in you, Potter. You know that isn't the correct way to handle things. Excessive potion consumption can lead to kidney damage, liver failure, arrhythmia, hallucinations, all sorts of problems that even magic can't fix. I'll give you Pepper-Up today, but only because I can see your exhaustion. After this, no more potions. And you'll come down here at least once every week from now on so I can cast a few spells, just to be sure you aren't ordering from the Apothecaries."

Draco can almost imagine the chagrined expression on Potter's face. "I swear I won't anymore, Madam Pomfrey, there's no need -"

"You'll do it, or I'll be speaking to the Headmistress. Now, if you're having trouble with nightmares, as I deduce you are if you've resorted to drugging yourself to avoid sleep, then magically speaking, apart from more Dreamless Sleep, there's nothing I can do."

The voices are getting closer, the sound of footsteps louder against the concrete corridor.

"I think the safest option would be if I suggested a number of Muggle home remedies for you to try. Don't look at me like that, they have been known to work. For example, you might place a scented candle on your nightstand, or perhaps practice a range of deep breathing exercises before bed, or there's always - _OH MY GOODNESS! MR. MALFOY!_"

There is the sound of running footsteps and in the next second, he feels gentle hands pushing him onto his back, running over the gashes in his face, his swollen eye, the grotesque protrusions in his abdomen. She mutters under her breath the entire time.

"- should've been here last night. I would have heard him -"

"- bruised tissue around eyes, jaw and stomach, broken skin around the hands, three broken ribs but no concussion, thank heavens -"

"Potter, why are you just standing there? Get me that box sitting by the cabinet."

He feels something cold and wet being applied liberally all over his face and unclothed torso. A healing salve, of some kind, he assumes, because almost immediately the pain in those areas is dulled. The throbbing in his side, however, remains sharper than ever.

"The ribs will be the worst, poor dear. There's nothing else for it, Mr. Malfoy, you'll be here all day and will probably be spending the night as well."

That's actually welcome news to Draco, who doesn't relish the thought of coming face to face with Theo again, but he doesn't mention it, keeping his eyes clamped shut, feeling the swelling rapidly receding under the salve, before opening them to horribly bright light, a combination of the hospital wing's ceiling chandeliers and currently un-curtained windows.

The thin, grey-haired matron forces a heaped spoonful of vile-tasting, bubbling, blue potion into his mouth before trotting off into her quarters to file his report. Almost instantaneously, the pain in his ribs intensifies two-fold, the cracked bones evidently mending themselves, the movements visible under his skin, gruesome and disturbing.

Horribly aware of Potter at his bedside, gawking like some kind of demented giant at the plethora of what he no doubts considers horrible sights - the moving bones, the Sectumsempra scars, the Dark Mark - Draco turns his left forearm to subtly hide his fading Mark, cursing for the thousandth time the fact that he'd been unable to mask it, and reaches forward for a thin cotton blanket lying at the foot of his bed to cover his chest, groaning weakly at the fresh waves of pain created by the effort.

"Don't move, you'll make it worse." Potter rushes forward, lifting the material, letting it billow out over Draco's aching body.

"Malfoy," his voice is quiet and his eyes are troubled, "what happened?"

Draco tries not to notice how very green those damn eyes are up close, especially without the glasses in the way, and makes sure to keep his tone deliberately light, hands pressing into his ribcage, alleviating some of the pressure. "Nothing, nothing. Just a little roughhousing, you know?"

Potter's expression is incredulous. "Roughhousing? With what, the Whomping Willow?"

"Har har." It's difficult to breathe, but he tries to keep his face emotionless, giving nothing away.

Potter doesn't buy it for an instant. "Tell me who did this to you."

Potter had saved Draco from the Fiendfyre, and then again from Azkaban, and he'd just let it all unfold like some swooning damsel in distress. He would be damned if he willingly let it happen thrice. In any case, he's not about to give Theo the satisfaction of knowing that he had squealed like a piglet to The Boy Who Lived, as though Potter were his keeper or something.

But Potter is still just standing there, clearly waiting for a response. Wildly, he remembers that attack is sometimes the best form of defence.

"I will if you tell me why you're apparently hitting the potion vials harder than my father did the summer after fourth year."

Potter's lips tighten infinitesimally, but he isn't distracted, simply crosses his stupidly fit arms over his stupidly broad chest, waiting imperiously for an answer.

"Just mind your own fucking business." Draco snaps, annoyed.

If he had been expecting Potter to storm off in a fit of rage the way he certainly would've done in the past, an angry flush seeping along his cheeks perhaps, Draco would have been sorely disappointed. Potter's voice is mild as he says, "You know, you should really stop running that mouth off, Malfoy. One day, it'll get you into a lot more trouble than just a black eye and a few cracked ribs."

He closes his eyes, the light making him feel too dizzy to keep them open a second longer. "For your information, Potter, this didn't happen because of anything I said."

A snort. "Somehow, I find that hard to believe."

"Believe whatever the fuck you like. I didn't ask for this, and I certainly didn't start it."

"So then who did?"

"Nice try. Now, go away."

"Was it someone in Slytherin? Was it even an eighth year? Was it Zabini?"

"No!" His eyes fly open. "No, Blaise had nothing to do with this."

Potter gives him a strange look. "Nott?"

Draco swallows slowly. "No, it wasn't Theo."

"So then who?"

"For the love of Merlin, will you please just fuck off?"

"So I'm supposed to just let it go that you've been beaten to a bloody pulp, then, am I?"

"Yes! Yes, you are! Nobody asked for you to come in and save the day with your fucking pathetic Gryffindor savior complex."

And that does it, there it is, that familiar fire in Potter's eyes, the snarl forming around his mouth. "You know, I don't recall you having much of a problem with my _fucking pathetic Gryffindor savior complex_ in the Room of Requirement last year." Draco looks away at that, heat flaring in his cheeks. "Or at your trial." Potter finishes, eyes still blazing.

He is just about to retort that Potter himself hadn't seemed so grateful about his incessant need to play the hero during fifth year, when it had effectively gotten his godfather killed. The words are right there, teetering on the tip of his tongue, waiting to be spat out…

But he can't do it. For some unfathomable reason, he just _can't_. It would be…too cruel.

The embarrassment at being reminded of his (apparently non-magically binding) life debts is still there though, so he grasps onto that, and lets it color his tone with the derision he'd always used in the past when arguing with the infuriating boy standing in front of him.

"That's ancient history, Potter. You haven't done anything worth mentioning since then. What's wrong? Running away like a coward wasn't enough? Taken to getting more hammered than an old Irish hag, have you?" Draco tries not to let Potter's thunderstruck expression affect him. "I wonder how much the Prophet would be willing to pay for the story that the Saviour of the wizarding world has finally lost his fucking marbles."

Potter steps back as though in shock, his hands begin shaking, and for one terrifying moment, even though Draco can't even see Potter's wand, every source of light in the hospital wing is extinguished. But the musty old chandeliers flicker back to life in the next second and then Potter is leaving, his robes swishing behind him in a manner that reminds Draco forcibly of Snape.

Hysterical laughter bubbles up inside him as the gilded doors to the wing are slammed shut.

He doesn't know what to panic about first.

Potter's alleged addiction?

Having managed to piss the Gryffindor off yet again without even trying to?

The fact that Potter's breathtaking display of uncontrolled magic has him so outrageously affected that when Granger and Weasley come down to visit him hours later, he is still almost unbearably hard under Madam Pomfrey's white linen sheets?

He stares at the pair of them, standing there anxiously, in confusion.

"Harry told us you were here, Draco. What happened?"

"Mate, tell us who it was. We won't hurt them…much."

He shifts to hide his discomfort, and inwardly puzzles over the fact that Potter had told his friends about his injuries, but keeps his mouth shut.

Granger fusses over his pillows while Weasley looks at him thoughtfully for a few minutes. "You know, in fifth year, Umbridge made Harry write lines with this special quill that used his blood as ink. For the entire week, the back of his hand bled like mad. It was so bad that he's still got the scars to show for it."

Draco's arousal flags almost instantly, an onslaught of hot shame replacing it instead. He had helped that vile woman. He hadn't heard about this detention business with Potter, but knows instinctively that he would have found it hilarious at the time. He tries to keep his voice even. "Why are you telling me this, Weasley?"

"_Because_. Even though Dumbledore could've had Umbridge fired for what she was doing, Harry wouldn't even tell _us_. We had to figure it out for ourselves."

He ignores the sick feeling in his stomach, the pity he feels for Potter warring with horrible guilt about what everything he had said earlier. "So?"

"So the point is, that was _stupid_ because we could have helped him. And you're making exactly the same mistake by not saying who did this."

"Not true, Weasley. I'm betting Potter kept his mouth shut for some stupid Gryffindor reason like wanting to take it like a man. Me? I won't tell because it's not worth my pride."

Granger frowns, forehead creasing in worry, while Weasley sighs in exasperation, rolling his eyes. "Fine, be an idiot. I've got your Astronomy and History of Magic notes, Hermione's done Muggle Studies, Ancient Runes and Transfigurations. You really picked a bloody awful day to have your face rearranged, Malfoy."

At that, despite the guilt still turning his stomach, Draco almost smiles.

* * *

><p><strong>I'm feeling so nervous. I hope everyone found that to be a believable first encounter! D:<strong>

**Please let me know what you thought?**

**By the way, I definitely don't share Draco's views about Scandinavian accents! They're totally hot! ;)**


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